DraftKings & FanDuel NASCAR DFS – GEICO 500 – April 25, 2021 – fantasycruncher.com

Core Plays

Chase Elliot – DK: $10,300 | FD: 11,700 – Starting 8th

When it comes to a track like Talledega, no matter which name is here as a core play, they really just fall as my favorite Core GPP play as this is a track that will bring us some unpredictability. We can expect on average at least six cautions per race here and the 2.66-mile Superspeedway offers us three-to-four wide racing and the fastest speeds throughout the season. We don’t necessarily need to approach this race as we would with Daytona where we would heavily stack the back, but we are going to see some higher variance here. Elliot has three top-ten finishes in his last four races at Talladega, with two of those being top-five and one of them being a win. Elliot has also led laps in each of his last four races here, with two of them being 41 or more laps led. No driver at Talladega has an average finish better than 11th historically – so that should paint the picture of the wide variance we can deal with here. The driver with the best recent average finish might surprise you and it is…

Ryan Preece – DK: $6,400 | FD: $8,000 – Starting 29th

It is always a bit eye-opening when a lower-priced guy on DraftKings isn’t exactly viewed the same on FanDuel. On DraftKings, Preece is the 26th priced driver in this race, while on FanDuel he is viewed as the 17th most expensive. This isn’t much to read into exactly, but it is something we don’t really see as the guys cheap on DK, usually are even cheaper on FD. So why Ryan Preece? Simply just his finishing positions historically at Talladega. Preece in four career races here has four top 20 finishes with 18th being his worst. In April of 2019, Preece finished third after starting 30th and in his most recent race in October of last year, he finished 10th after starting 25th. Preece has always had some success at the larger tracks, whether road or superspeedway. In his four career Talladega starts, Preece has an average start of 29th and an average finish of 11th. We are pretty much strictly looking to take advantage of place differential here, though it should be noted that Preece has 42 total fastest laps over his last three races. Based on recent driver history, Preece actually has the best average finish career-wise at Talladega when compared to the field.

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