Even though Michigan is a rare track type on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule, it's not mystery what you look for here.
You need that speed. Hot, nasty, badass speed.
The last time they had qualifying here, Brad Keselowski ($10,300 on FanDuel) won the pole, averaging more than 190 miles per hour on his lap. Good luck faking that for a 200-lap race.
The result is a race where equipment matters, and the pool of drivers who can win is narrower. We may not have many tracks similar to Michigan, but we know who will run out front.
We can get a glimpse at that by just looking at the 550-horsepower races lumped together as one. We'll want to bump up the importance of the two races at Pocono because it's the lone non-drafting 550-horsepower race on a track longer than 1.5 miles (Michigan is two miles, and Pocono is 2.5), but putting this all in a blender should signal who will be fast.
The data sheet below gives you the numbers you need to make that determination. The six races in the current form section are the two in Pocono, the two on tracks with lower tire falloff (Charlotte and Las Vegas), and the two most recent races in this package that don't fit in those two buckets. In order of importance, you'd rank the Pocono races first, followed by the lower-falloff races, and then Atlanta and Kansas.
As always, the data listed is each driver's average running position rather than their finish. In the second 2019 Michigan race, Keselowski, Joey Logano ($10,500), Ryan Blaney ($9,500), and Kurt Busch ($9,000) all ran out of gas late and finished outside the top 15. However, all four had top-10 average running positions for the day. They were stronger than their finishes indicated, meaning the average running positions better signal what we should expect going forward.
The other data listed is each driver's starting spot, FanDuel salary, and win odds at NASCAR odds. The win odds are in fractional form, so Kyle Larson ($14,500) being listed at 2.6 means he's +260 to win.
| Current Form | Track History | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Driver | FD Salary | Win Odds | Start | Atlanta 2 | Pocono 2 | Pocono 1 | Charlotte | Kansas | Las Vegas | 2020 2 | 2020 1 | 2019 2 | 2019 1 |
| Kyle Larson | $14,500 | 2.6 | 1 | 9 | 17 | 5 | 1 | 3 | 3 | -- | -- | 13 | 11 |
| Chase Elliott | $12,500 | 9 | 2 | 12 | 15 | 19 | 3 | 9 | 12 | 9 | 8 | 12 | 12 |
| Ryan Blaney | $9,500 | 26 | 3 | 9 | 16 | 10 | 17 | 8 | 6 | 22 | 7 | 7 | 11 |
| Matt DiBenedetto | $7,200 | 55 | 4 | 12 | 20 | 21 | 20 | 12 | 11 | 7 | 20 | 22 | 25 |
| Martin Truex Jr. | $13,000 | 8 | 5 | 11 | 9 | 14 | 14 | 9 | 7 | 14 | 20 | 7 | 6 |
| Kurt Busch | $9,000 | 31 | 6 | 2 | 12 | 8 | 32 | 13 | 14 | 9 | 10 | 9 | 8 |
| Kyle Busch | $13,500 | 6.5 | 7 | 2 | 9 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 12 | 5 | 7 | 12 | 13 |
| Kevin Harvick | $12,000 | 9 | 8 | 16 | 12 | 13 | 7 | 7 | 18 | 4 | 2 | 7 | 10 |
| Denny Hamlin | $11,500 | 13 | 9 | 9 | 10 | 8 | 10 | 8 | 4 | 8 | 4 | 5 | 14 |
| Alex Bowman | $10,000 | 21 | 10 | 5 | 12 | 11 | 7 | 21 | 11 | 20 | 10 | 9 | 10 |
| Chris Buescher | $5,700 | 150 | 11 | 16 | 20 | 20 | 14 | 17 | 18 | 20 | 25 | 17 | 16 |
| Ricky Stenhouse Jr. | $5,800 | 85 | 12 | 35 | 19 | 20 | 12 | 19 | 15 | 19 | 14 | 24 | 23 |
| Erik Jones | $4,500 | 200 | 13 | 24 | 27 | 20 | 16 | 26 | 17 | 10 | 7 | 13 | 13 |
| Tyler Reddick | $8,500 | 35 | 14 | 5 | 11 | 13 | 8 | 10 | 20 | 17 | 23 | -- | -- |
| Bubba Wallace | $6,500 | 85 | 15 | 15 | 12 | 13 | 13 | 22 | 32 | 18 | 16 | 23 | 24 |
| Ryan Newman | $5,000 | 170 | 16 | 25 | 21 | 31 | 20 | 28 | 20 | 20 | 25 | 18 | 19 |
| Justin Haley | $3,000 | 200 | 17 | 29 | -- | 27 | 29 | 32 | 29 | -- | -- | -- | -- |
| William Byron | $11,000 | 17 | 18 | 13 | 9 | 7 | 3 | 10 | 6 | 11 | 16 | 8 | 16 |
| Joey Logano | $10,500 | 19 | 19 | 13 | 14 | 8 | 13 | 17 | 11 | 10 | 12 | 5 | 3 |
| Brad Keselowski | $10,300 | 19 | 20 | 9 | 8 | 15 | 14 | 4 | 4 | 20 | 6 | 7 | 11 |
| Chase Briscoe | $5,500 | 170 | 21 | 17 | 19 | 20 | 24 | 25 | 24 | -- | -- | -- | -- |
| Ross Chastain | $8,000 | 47 | 22 | 20 | 18 | 20 | 35 | 16 | 22 | -- | -- | 29 | -- |
| Aric Almirola | $7,000 | 55 | 23 | 20 | 10 | 19 | 25 | 25 | 27 | 12 | 19 | 22 | 10 |
| Corey LaJoie | $3,500 | 200 | 24 | 22 | 25 | 30 | 22 | 26 | 28 | 23 | 26 | 28 | 27 |
| Michael McDowell | $4,000 | 200 | 25 | 27 | 14 | 14 | 22 | 21 | 18 | 29 | 26 | 26 | 25 |
| Austin Dillon | $7,500 | 55 | 26 | 13 | 20 | 23 | 8 | 13 | 16 | 22 | 17 | 18 | 15 |
| Cole Custer | $5,300 | 170 | 27 | 21 | 23 | 37 | 24 | 24 | 25 | 22 | 17 | -- | -- |
| Christopher Bell | $9,200 | 26 | 28 | 12 | 13 | 23 | 20 | 11 | 9 | 12 | 15 | -- | -- |
| Josh Bilicki | $2,000 | 200 | 29 | 35 | 36 | 33 | 35 | 39 | 36 | 36 | -- | -- | 34 |
| Daniel Suarez | $6,000 | 85 | 30 | 35 | 15 | 14 | 20 | 20 | 22 | 28 | 29 | 15 | 13 |
| Quin Houff | $2,500 | 200 | 31 | 34 | 35 | 31 | 32 | 36 | 34 | 34 | 32 | 33 | 34 |
| Ryan Preece | $4,500 | 200 | 32 | 24 | 17 | 24 | 24 | 27 | 19 | 25 | 25 | 19 | 22 |
| Garrett Smithley | $2,000 | 200 | 33 | 32 | 33 | 29 | 34 | 34 | 32 | 36 | 36 | 35 | 33 |
| James Davison | $3,000 | 200 | 34 | -- | 31 | 26 | 34 | -- | -- | 38 | 39 | -- | -- |
| Anthony Alfredo | $3,500 | 200 | 35 | 27 | 37 | 24 | 22 | 24 | 23 | -- | -- | -- | -- |
| B.J. McLeod | $2,500 | 200 | 36 | 30 | 30 | 29 | 32 | 33 | 30 | -- | -- | -- | -- |
| Cody Ware | $2,500 | 200 | 37 | 32 | 27 | 24 | 31 | 35 | 33 | -- | -- | 36 | -- |
The data above makes Larson look good; it's still massively underselling him.
Because the track-history data goes back to just 2019, Michigan doesn't seem like a stand-out track for Larson. Those two races were the exception, though. Larson won three straight races here in 2016 and 2017, and he did that while driving for a mid-tier team in Chip Ganassi Racing. He's now with Hendrick Motorsports, the team that has put the sport to shame across the summer months. It's a huge equipment upgrade for someone already with three wins under his belt at the track.
Without adjusting for equipment, Larson ranks second in my model's projected average running position at 7.75, trailing Kyle Busch ($13,500) at 7.50. But after making the adjustments, Larson's number shoots down to 6.32, more than a full position better than anybody else. He's +260 for a reason, and we should be high on him for DFS thanks to his massive potential to take a flamethrower to the field.
The mid-range has three drivers who could scoop place-differential points in Keselowski, Logano, and William Byron ($11,000). Between the three, Byron should be highest on our list. He had the best speed on the group in Pocono, including a third-place finish in the first race. The second Atlanta stop is his lone non-drafting 550-horsepower race this year with an average running position outside the top 10, so Byron is a core play and makes for an easy Hendrick stack with Larson.
If you're looking for a salary-saver to make Larson's tag easier to afford, Michael McDowell ($4,000) could be a consideration. Equipment matters a lot here, and McDowell's lacking in that department. However, he still had a 14th-place average running position in both Pocono races, and he has finished inside the top 20 in all but one non-drafting 550-horsepower race this year. That doesn't seem like a lot, but it could easily be enough when it comes from the 25th starting spot for $4,000.