Kansas 2 Post Practice Fantasy NASCAR Predictions
Most people thought we would leave all of the craziness in Talladega, but those people were way wrong. On Friday here at Kansas, everything pretty much went as planned, but then qualifying happened on Saturday and we’re looking at some interesting scenarios for drivers at the start of the Hollywood Casino 400 this weekend. We’ve seen starting position not mean much here at Kansas before, but for some drivers, they’re really in a hole to start out. Kansas is your typical “cookie cutter” 1.5-mile track, and we have a bunch of data to rely on from that track type this season. I’d definitely recommend checking those races out.
If you’d like a statistic recap of all of the 1.5-mile track races of 2019, please click here.
As mentioned before, qualifying was a little crazy here on Saturday, and we have Daniel Hemric and David Ragan starting 1-2 for Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400. See the entire starting lineup by clicking here. There were two pre-qualifying practice sessions held on Friday, and the speeds from those can be found here: Practice #1 — Happy Hour. You should also read our in-depth notes for those sessions: Practice #1 — Happy Hour. [themify_box ]Want to be a better fantasy racer? Get the ifantasyrace advantage and read all of our full, exclusive content. We offer tons of content every week to help you dominate your leagues, both season-long and DFS weekly. Click here to Join Now.[/themify_box]
Final Top 25 Fantasy NASCAR Rankings for Kansas 2
1. Martin Truex, Jr. – Starts 11th – DraftKings Price: $10,800 – FanDuel Price: $13,500 – Slingshot Price: $13,300
On Sunday, Martin Truex, Jr. basically just needs to avoid disaster in order to get to the next round of the Playoffs, so it’ll be interesting to see how this #19 plays the Hollywood Casino 400 in terms of aggressiveness. Truex hasn’t been the best driver on the 1.5-mile tracks this season, but he’s easily been one of the best. Looking at average finish on them this year, the #19 team is sitting at 9.9, and when you take away their worst performance, that jumps up to 8.3. Here at Kansas, Truex won both races here in 2017, and in the two events last season he swept the top 5 by finishing 2nd and 5th. He wound up 19th here back in May but that was an off day for the Joe Gibbs Racing team. This weekend, I fully expect Truex to challenge for a top 5 finish, but I don’t think we’re going to see a dominating effort by any means. I envision this #19 team playing it a bit safe and getting out of Kansas unscathed.
2. Kevin Harvick – Starts 40th – DraftKings Price: $11,000 – FanDuel Price: $14,500 – Slingshot Price: $12,800
Kevin Harvick’s last two finishes at Kansas (13th and 12th) might not look great, but he really had one of the best cars in both of those races–as evidenced by his 180 total laps led. The good news for Harvick fans is that this #4 team is red hot right now and not really running into much bad luck, and that should turn in to a really good effort here at Kansas on Sunday–if not a win. Harvick is a three-time winner at this race track and has finished runner-up another three times in his career here, and on the 1.5-mile tracks this season, he’s arguably been the best in the series, racking up 28 DraftKings dominator points per race (series-best) with an average finish of 10.4 (5th-best). Take out his worst performance and Harvick is sitting at 32.2 and 8.5 in those categories, respectively. Momentum-wise, “Happy” is still on fire after Talladega, with an average finish of 5.7 over the last six races and and ten results of 7th or better in the last twelve races overall. Even though he has to start dead last on Sunday, Harvick will be a contender before it’s all said and done.
3. Chase Elliott – Starts 14th – DraftKings Price: $10,100 – FanDuel Price: $12,500 – Slingshot Price: $11,800
Going into Sunday, Chase Elliott doesn’t need a win to advance in the Playoffs, but it’s kind of close. The good news? He’s the defending winner of this fall Kansas race and has also finished 4th or better in three of the last four races at this track. Chase also led 45 laps here at Kansas back in May, while also finished 2nd and 1st in the two Stages–all after starting back in 32nd. So, yeah, I’d say he’s pretty good here. As far as speed this weekend, none of the Hedrick cars looked great on Friday, but honestly I’m not too concerned about that. Chase has an average finish of 8.6 on the 1.5-mile tracks this season (excluding Atlanta) and that’s 2nd-best in the series, and he also has the 2nd-best average running position with 10.1. There’s no reason that Elliott shouldn’t compete for a top 5 here at Kansas on Sunday.
