After a week off for the Easter holiday, NASCAR DFS is back on track with the Blue-Emu Maximum Pain Relief 500 at Martinsville. The track itself is a .526 mile course with little to no banking and a narrow racing surface. Its design is well known by racing fans, as the track is uniquely shaped like that of a paperclip.
Team Penske’s Joey Logano and Joe Gibb Racing’s Denny Hamlin find themselves on the pole for Saturday night’s event. As usual, there are no practice or qualifying sessions for either series, so we will rely heavily on the previous year’s data for setting our DraftKings lineups.
Let’s dive in!
Racing-Reference.info and DriverAverages.com were used for analysis.
Martin Truex Jr | Joe Gibbs Racing | $12,000
Martin Truex Jr is one of the best drivers at Martinsville Speedway. Last fall he was the victim of a loose wheel, which cost him his second straight win at the track. In his last four races, he has two wins, two top-5’s, four top-10’s and a whopping 725 laps lead. Prior to last week’s Bristol Dirt Race, he was on a roll with four consecutive top-10’s with a win included.
He’s the highest-priced driver for a reason this week, so squeezing him into your lineup at $12,000 could be tough. We’re looking for drivers who are going to either lead a lot of laps or pass a lot of cars. Truex starts seventh, so it is likely he will make his way to the front at some point in this race.
Brad Keselowski | Team Penske | $11,000
“Bad” Brad Keselowski is another one of the superior drivers at Martinsville Speedway. In his last five races here, he has five top-5’s and a win. He’s lead 454 laps, has an average starting position of 6.3 with an average finishing position of 2.8. He has also scored over 50 DraftKings points in each of those last five races.
He’s priced correctly in my opinion at $11,000, and it’s a price I’m willing to pay. Especially in GPP builds.
Bubba Wallace | 23XI Racing | $7,300
This is the first time in 2021 that I have had Bubba Wallace amongst my recommended drivers. We are going with him this week because Martinsville might just be his best rack outside of the superspeedways. The stats over at racing-reference.info are a bit deceiving however at first look.
You’ll notice there are no top-10’s recorded over his last four races, however upon digging further you will also notice his average starting position is 26.8, while his average finishing position is 15.5. Bubba is usable this week because of where he starts for this race: p25. If he’s able to duplicate previous runs at the Virginia race track, he will score us some place differential points. The key will be staying on the lead lap.
Chris Buescher | Roush Racing | $6,400
Chris Buescher has quietly put together a consistent season to start 2021. Of his last five races this year, all have resulted in a top-20 finish. If you take away the Daytona 500 at the start of the year, his average finishing position is 13.8.
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His statistics at Martinsville are honestly not that impressive, but they’re not bad either. He has an average finishing position of 21st and starts 15th on Saturday night. What has drawn me in is the price tag. Buescher is priced a bit low in my opinion at $6,400, so I’ll be using him in GPP’s while others target the inconsistent Ross Chastain and Chase Briscoe looking for place differential bonus points.
My feeling is they both wind up a lap down early, while Buescher again discreetly has another solid top-15 finish.
Ryan Blaney | Team Penske | $10,100
Ryan Blaney is one of my favorites to win the Blue-Emu Maximum Pain Relief 500 and take home his first grandfather clock. It’s by no means a “hot take” as Blaney has been close to winning here the last two races, with two second-place finishes. In his last four appearances here, he has four top-5’s (worst finish of fifth) and has lead 70 laps as well.
In his last four races this season, he has four top-10’s, two top-5’s, and a win at Atlanta. I look for Blaney to improve as the race progresses and the sun goes away. He starts fourth. At his price point, we really need for him to lead some laps and run some fastest laps to hit value with those bonus points.
Kurt Busch | Chip Ganassi Racing | $8,900
If you happen to be playing DraftKings sportsbook, you might want to take the bet on Kurt Busch to win this race at +3000. He’s run well here throughout his career, has won this race before, and has had fast cars this season. Over his last four races on the paperclip, he has one top-5, three top-10’s, and 23 laps lead.
They’re not dominating stats, but he does seem to consistently avoid trouble and keep his nose clean here. His average starting position is 14.5, while his average finishing position is 8.0. Due to the fact that he starts from p.21, he’s a solid DFS play. Chances are he will finish higher than that. Hopefully a top-5. He’s great for both cash and tournament builds.
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