Darlington Post Practice Fantasy NASCAR Predictions

One of the longest races of the season (at least time wise) is this weekend, as the popular “Throwback Weekend” is in full effect for the Bojangles’ Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway. In this race last year, we saw Denny Hamlin overcome a slip-up of missing pit road only to roar back to victory lane with Kyle and Kurt Busch following him to the line. This is a Sunday night race that will start when the sun is going down and end with the track lights on, so we should see plenty of comers and goers throughout the event. And let’s not forget that there’s only two races left until the Playoffs start–will we see a gamble by a team on the outside looking in?

As far as the schedule this weekend, we had two practice sessions on Friday followed by qualifying (and qualifying only) on Saturday. This is an impound race and no cars failed inspection, so us Fantasy NASCAR players don’t have anything to worry about there. Denny Hamlin won the pole for Sunday night’s race and the full starting lineup for the 2018 Southern 500 can be found by clicking here. You can find the practice speeds from Friday’s two sessions here: Practice #1 – Happy Hour, and don’t forget to read our in-depth notes for those practices as well: Practice #1 – Happy Hour.

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Final Top 25 Rankings for Darlington

1. Kyle Busch – Starts 5th – DraftKings Price: $12,400 – FanDuel Price: $14,000
**Risk Factor: Low Risk**

In addition to having a great paint scheme on it this weekend, the #18 Toyota is plenty fast and should be a contender for the Southern 500 win on Sunday night. As far as his personal record here goes at Darlington, Kyle Busch is a previous winner at “The Lady in Black” (back in 2008) and has managed to post eight finishes of 7th or better in thirteen career starts here. Overall, Rowdy has a career average finish of 12th at this track, which is 6th-best among active drivers with more than one start here. As far as momentum goes, this #18 team broke their five-race streak of top 5 finishes at Bristol a couple of weeks ago, but they still have ten results inside that mark in the last twelve Cup Series races overall. There’s no reason why that shouldn’t turn into eleven of the last thirteen after this weekend. Rowdy wasn’t overly impressive in Practice #1 this weekend but was 4th-fastest overall in Happy Hour on Friday with the best ten-lap average.

2. Denny Hamlin – Starts 1st – DraftKings Price: $9,900 – FanDuel Price: $11,600
**Risk Factor: Low Risk**

Denny Hamlin’s record here at Darlington is borderline unbelievable, and I’d actually put him in that category if he had more wins. Still, he’s the defending Southern 500 champion (one of his two wins here) and has a career average finish of 5.8 (!!) here over the course of twelve career starts. Talk about a lock. Now, as far as this weekend goes, Hamlin was the fastest car in the first practice session on Friday and then posted the 15th-fastest lap in Happy Hour along with the 5th-best ten-lap average. There’s no reason to think that the #11 Toyota can’t challenge for a top 5 here on Sunday night, if not the win. The only thing I don’t really like about Hamlin this weekend is his momentum–or lack thereof: this #11 team hasn’t sniffed the top 5 since the Charlotte race back in May.

3. Kevin Harvick – Starts 22nd – DraftKings Price: $11,400 – FanDuel Price: $13,400
**Risk Factor: Low Risk**

Surprise, surprise, Kevin Harvick will be a contender at Darlington on Sunday night–even despite his bad qualifying effort. As far as the practice sessions go on Friday, the #4 Ford wasn’t really its normal self, but it wasn’t slow by any means either; Harvick ranked 3rd in ten-lap average in both practices that day and ended up 13th-fastest on the speed chart during Happy Hour. Looking at his track history here, Harvick won from the pole here in 2014 and is currently on a five-race streak of top 10s at “The Lady in Black”–four of which were also top 5s. It should come as no surprise then that “Happy” has the best average running position over the last five Darlington races (4.0). The only way he won’t finish inside the top 5 on Sunday night is if he has mechanical problems or somehow wrecks out.