NASCAR Cup action returns this Sunday to Kentucky Motor Speedway for the Quaker State 400. So let’s buckle up and go through the top Champion and Flex selections on SuperDraft for this Sunday’s event.
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Champion Selections – Cash
Christopher Bell, 34th (2.25X multiplier) – Look, I don’t know if the random draw system is rigged. However, it is odd that Bell keeps getting stuck in the mid-to-high 30s. Regardless, until he can make top 24 in points, he will continue to be the headliner of this section. Last Sunday at Indianapolis saw the second straight week that Bell did the seemingly impossible and drove into the top five. He would have finished with 30 place differential spots if not for worries about a right front blowing out like had happened to “teammates” Erik Jones and Denny Hamlin.
Thus, let’s bet again on talent. I softly have Bell projected to drive from 34th to 16th and finish the day with 90.45 SuperDraft points as a Champion pick. If he finishes top 10, his point projection jumps north of 100. He is once again the driver with the highest floor as well as ceiling.
Cole Custer, 29th (2.35X multiplier) – Perhaps the only driver with a chance of touching Bell’s projection is the driver of the No. 41. Custer had been the safe play all year. By the end of the Indianapolis race, we finally saw Custer’s ceiling as he was hanging around the top 10. It should be noted that it took pit strategy and several better driver’s wrecking out for Custer to get to where he ended. Nonetheless, it was refreshing to see more out of Custer than his typical 15-20 finish.
While Custer starts farther than Bell, he does have a slightly higher multiplier. I currently have Custer projected to finish 21st which would give him 76.8 SuperDraft points. However, should Custer finish 13th or better, then we’re talking 90 SuperDraft points or more.
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Champion Selections – GPP
Erik Jones, 17th (2.05X multiplier) – How safe do you feel? Any week it could be a top-five finish or a fiery wreck into turn 3. We can’t necessarily blame last week’s DNF on Jones per se, he was a victim of Goodyear’s tire. However, it is uncanny that these things keep befalling Jones. If he gets abducted by aliens, don’t say I didn’t warn you.
My model has Jones finishing seventh, which would give him his fourth straight top-10 finish at Kentucky. Even a seventh-place finish only hits 70.11 SuperDraft points as a Champion selection. To really be worth rostering as a Champion, he’ll need to lead a chunk of laps.
Matt Kenseth, 18th (2.45X multiplier) – I recommended Kenseth last week on the basis of him finally jumping the curve with the No. 42 team. That was all too apparent with Kenseth’s second-place finish. So now we have to decide if that momentum continues or was Kenseth’s success a matter of him still being good at the likes of Pocono/Indianapolis or just a matter of attrition? Kenseth has an amazing 2.45X multiplier, higher than either Bell or Custer, but starting 18th means you need a top five for him to be a great Champion selection. Currently I have Kenseth finishing 19th scoring 63.57 as a Champion.
Ryan Preece, 32nd (2.55X multiplier) – Preece could easily be in the cash section of Champion picks. Like Bell, he has great place differential upside. However, he has an even higher multiplier meaning he needs less standard points to really pay off. As of now, I have Preece finishing 24th scoring 34.7 SuperDraft points. Yet with his multiplier that turns into 88.48 SuperDraft points. If Preece simply sneaks into the top 20, then his day will end with over 100 fantasy points.
NASCAR DFS Flex Selections
Tyler Reddick, 25th (1.4X multiplier) – For the past few races, Reddick has been out of our pool because he was starting too high. Now he starts 25th after the random draw and he finds his way back into our rosters. We know Reddick has a fairly achievable ceiling after hanging around the top five all day at Homestead. While I don’t expect similar results, a top-15 finish is what I’m projecting giving him the second-highest standard score on the day (39.7)
Michael McDowell (1.5X multiplier) – While DraftKings and FanDuel are slow to adjust McDowell, SuperDraft has to match his results. Following his 2nd top-10 finish in 3 races, McDowell now has a 1.5X multiplier matching Christopher Bell. Pit strategy and attrition have fueled those finishes, neither factors we expect to play a role in Sunday’s race. However, based on McDowell’s run in 2020, a top-20 finish is within his reasonable range of outcomes. I have McDriver projected to finish 17th, finishing with 54.67 SuperDraft points in the Flex position.
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