Food City 500 at Bristol

Goodbye Bristol Motor Speedway dirt, welcome back Food City 500.

This week, the stars of the NASCAR Cup Series take on the high banks of the historic Bristol for the first time in the spring on concrete since 2020. Affectionately known as The Last Great Colosseum and The World’s Fastest Half-Mile, the East Tennessee short track has produced many memorable moments throughout its history. Names like Dale Earnhardt, Jeff Gordon, Darrell Waltrip and Kyle Busch have dominated here over the years, rattling cages all along the way.

The key this week will be tires and handling, as Kevin Harvick found out last fall when an ill-handling car put him behind the field early. He never recovered and wound up out of the playoffs in his final season.

I had some hard luck last week at Phoenix Raceway. Barely any of my picks panned out and I missed out on all three of my recommended bets. As I always say though, it’s a new week, and there are groups to win and money to be made.

Now before I get into my picks, here’s a quick breakdown of the rules.

Points will be awarded on DraftKings for finishing position, position differential, fastest laps and laps led. The driver who wins the race scores 45 fantasy points, while second gets 42 points, third gets 41 points and so on, at least through the top 10. The 11th-place finisher scores 32 points, 21st gets 21 points and 31st gets 10 points.

However many spots they lose or gain on the track is added to or subtracted from the score. Then, if the driver leads a lap, they will earn 0.25 points for each lap led and 0.45 points for each fastest lap.

DraftKings NASCAR Scoring Rules

Here are my picks for the week. Bristol is a very tough place both on the cars and the drivers inside them. It’s important to find the balance between aggression and finesse if you want to win here, and these are the guys I think possess those qualities:

Fantasy Forecast

1. Denny Hamlin ($11,200)

Stats that matter: 3 career wins at Bristol, career average finish of 13.9 at Bristol, has completed 95.8% of his career laps at Bristol

Denny Hamlin might have just given one away last week in Phoenix, and you can bet on the fact that he’ll be out to right that wrong.

There is perhaps no one else in the field, outside of Kyle Larson, who is always someone to watch here. Hamlin’s resume absolutely speaks for itself, with his three wins and 17 top-10 finishes in 33 starts.

The most astounding statistic…