Richmond Raceway hosts the second-to-last race of the regular season.
Richmond is a 0.75-mile flat track with a very old surface age that chews up tires. Thus, tire management will be key. That tends to favor veterans, or younger guys who have a bit smoother driving style.
With Richmond being such a short track, there are cars that ran 50-plus laps in practice, giving us a solid data set to work with.
That means my practice FLAGS data will help quite a bit.
In addition, you can check out my NASCAR projections in the NASCAR Models on FantasyLabs, complete with floor, ceiling, median, and ownership projections.
My projections, along with Stephen Young’s from RotoGrinders, are available in our new NASCAR DFS package. You can read more about what the package entails here.
Let’s not skip the best part — my Perfect% metric — a metric that tells you how often certain racers appear in the optimal lineup when running 10,000 race simulations.
And don’t forget about the tools that FantasyLabs has to offer, like our Lineup Optimizer to effortlessly create up to 300 lineups or our Lineup Builder if you like to hand-build your lineups.
So, without further ado, here’s my strategy guide and NASCAR DFS picks for the Cook Out 400 at Richmond Raceway.
Cook Out 400 DFS Core Picks
Instead of calling them cash-game picks, I’ll call them core picks, as these are picks I like in all formats. However, it’s important to note that very often core picks tend to go over-rostered in tournaments, so while they should still be used plenty, it may be prudent to sometimes go underweight on these drivers if you think they’ll be significantly over-rostered.
This is a tough week for cash games, with several high-dollar drivers and big names qualifying near the back. Ordinarily we’d pick them without a second thought, but with 400 laps in store at Richmond, there’s around 250 dominator points to go for, meaning we want to take some dominators as well.
Depending on who dominates, it could open up the door for several different roster constructions.
Anyway, here are my core picks:
Kyle Larson ($10,500): Larson was saddled with a rough qualifying spot in the order, meaning he’ll start 30th on Saturday night.
That’s okay, because Larson had arguably the best long-run car in the first practice group, tying Kyle Busch for the best 30-lap average and posting better lap times than Busch after the 30-lap mark.
Kyle Busch ($8500): That said, I’m still picking Rowdy among my core group of drivers, given he topped every lap average in the first practice group from five to 30 laps. He’s also a $2000 discount compared to Larson, so if you’re going to drop one of these two in favor of another shot at a dominator, as you should do in tournaments, then Larson would get the boot and Rowdy stays in.
Denny Hamlin ($11,000): And if you’re going after a dominator, Denny Hamlin is top dog. Not only has he by far been the best driver at Richmond in the Next Gen era, but he also leads my practice FLAGS metric by quite a bit over the next driver that I’ll talk about in the tournament section.
Cook Out 400 DFS Tournament Picks
Ryan Blaney ($10,700): Blaney has struggled at Richmond in his career, but that is going to create an ownership discount for those non-believers.
However, Blaney has markedly improved not only at Richmond, but also at Darlington and Homestead, which are two other high-tire-wear tracks he used to struggle at.
As I alluded to in the Hamlin section, Blaney was second in practice FLAGS and had one of the best long-run cars in the second practice group, which featured the overall faster cars.
The nice thing about Blaney is he also comes with some place-differential potential, since he starts just 20th.
Chase Elliott ($10,000): Elliott is the other top dog I’m seriously looking at for dominator potential, either with Hamlin or in case Hamlin doesn’t, as he starts close to the front in fifth.
Elliott, like Blaney, was one of the best cars on the long run in that second practice group, and he’s a veteran with experience managing tires.
Elliott was third overall in FLAGS, and along with Hamlin and Blaney, he was one of the three cars swapping fastest lap times over the final 10-15 laps of the practice run.
Corey Heim ($6700): Heim, along with Jesse Love, is one of the non full-time entrants in this race which may mean we get a bit of an ownership discount here, especially in big tournaments.
Heim races for 23XI, which also has Bubba Wallace and Tyler Reddick in its stable, and both Heim and Riley Herbst, the fourth 23XI driver, topped Wallace and Reddick in practice FLAGS.
Some of that may be artificial, given that they were in the first group when track conditions fired off faster than the second group, but on the very long run, the roles flipped.
Either way, Heim had one of the better cars in that first practice group, which suggests he is closer to a top-half car than a bottom-third car. That means I expect him to move up from his 32nd-place starting spot, possibly by quite a bit.
Pictured: Kyle Busch
Photo credit: Matthew O’Haren, Imagn