Darlington Fantasy NASCAR Picks! Playoffs Begin After Ryan Preece Wins Daytona

0:00Football is back and this is Belie. Your home for NFL and college football news and analysis all season long. Now, let's start the show. Hey, hey, what's going on everybody? Routy dragging back for another week of final lap weekly fantasy racing. So did you survive Daytona? That track has a wonderful way of wrecking a fantasy score. Something you've worked so hard for all season long. Daytona can close it out with fireworks. Well, we're headed off to Darlington this week. The Lady in Black, the track too tough to tame. This will be our second visit to this track this season. The first race of the chase. So before we look at Darlington, let's take a look at our stage winners for the week at Daytona. Our first stage goes to sobriety racing 25. Stage two tall fly boy and this week's winner losing makes my dick trickle finishing the day off with 214 points.

1:0331 stage points on the day. Pretty good score. I saw the maximum score of 234 for the week. Taking a look at Routy, Toby and Carrie as well as our sponsors to see how we did this week. Routy dragon finishing P53. It wasn't so bad for me Daytona always worries me. It's very easy to come up with a double digit finish like I said, ruin your fantasy season. So that's a score actually pulls me up to the 10th position in the league. I cracked the top 10 finally starting the chase off right. Toby Christie had a great run on the day finished P23 at Daytona. That moves him up into the 45th position in the league. Toby making some ground. Carrie Murphy, Jimmy is back finishing P1 18 has him in the 79th position. Same spot as last week. Now taking a look at our sponsors Devin, DL racing king 11. He busted us all this week had a great day finishing P18. He currently sits P51 in the league standings trying to gun down Toby.

2:05Louisville max finishing P107 slides right behind me in to P11 and Quentin Whitaker. Ironhead fan number three. He had a tough go at it finishing 238th on the day. He currently sits 87th in the overall standings. Now before we take a look at the featured picks for the week. I've got a few names to shout out to myself. Some folks that have been sponsoring me through the whole season here. We've got Mike Scott Hamilton, Troy Clark, Robert Keen, Chris White, Louisville max and Simon Green. All kicking down some of that green from week to week. Appreciate it fellas. Pitching into the beer fund. Okay, so let's take a look at Darlington for the week. We get to dive into some big guns again. One more mid-tier drivers. We all have a reset. Five uses of each driver with 10 races to go. So I'm going to start you off with the 11 carved Danny Hamlin. He's race 28 times at Darlington with an average finish of 8.0. He's got 14 top five finishes putting him up in the top five and 50% of his races.

3:0620 top 10s lands him in the top 10 and 71% of his runs. He's led quite a few laps at 1222 averaging 36.5 laps lead per race. He has five wins at Darlington and quite a few stage points. He's racked up points 25 times in 34 stages and he is a three times stage winner. Now if Darlington raceways too tough to tame, Danny Hamlin didn't get that memo. Danny enters the weekend as the active master of Darlington. When a driver boasts a 50% top five finish rate and finishes inside the top 10 and 71% of his 28 career starts. At a track this punishing, it isn't luck. It's pure craft and unmatched tire management. Look at the tracks that eat tires for breakfast. Hamlin isn't just a three time winner at homestead and a multi time winner at Dover. He just proved it again a few weeks ago with a P3 finish at the return of Chicago and Speedway. He's abrasive cheese grater surfaces, forced drivers to manage extreme lap time fall off and no one controls the pace on worn out asphalt better than the 11 does.

4:08Coming off a P11 finish at the Lady in Black in the spring, history is overwhelmingly on his side and he is absolutely due for that top five again. Across his entire 28 race Darlington career, Hamlin has only finished outside the top 10 in consecutive races a single time back in the 23 season. Every other time the Lady in Black pushed him back, he answered immediately with a top 10 or a top five or a trip to victory lane. Even when he is an out front taking the checkered flag, the 11 machine hordes stage points. In fact, he's collected the most stage points in the field. His driver rating consistently leads the entire garage because he manages long run fall off better than almost anyone on the track. Here's what to watch for in practice. That's on 4 o'clock Eastern this Saturday. Look for that 15 to 20 lap fall off, ignore single lap speed. Track is 15 and 20 lap consecutive averages during his practice session. If the 11 maintains lap times while the rest of the field falls off a cliff after lap 12, lock him in the near lineup with zero hesitation.

5:08Listen for his radio feedback regarding how well his nose cuts across those bumps on entry. If the balance is dialed in without chewing up that right rear, he's primed to contend for 500 miles. Don't ever think the chalk this week. When the chase kicks off at a tire eater like Darlington, he's started a guy who almost never strings together two bad runs here and dominates the driver ratings. Hamlin is your anchor for this one. So moving on to our second big gun, I've got the 45 of Tyler Reddick here. He's got 14 races run at Darlington with an average finish of 10.8. Six top five finishes lands him top five in 43% of his races. Eight top 10s puts him up in the top 10 57% of the time. He's got 399 laps lead. That averages 28.5 laps lead per race. He has one win at the track to tough to tame. Stage points, he's racked up a few as well, collecting 19 times out of 28 stages. And he is a one time stage winner and he's bagged a second four times. So if we look at the only comparable track we ran this season, you can write off that 36 place finish at Chicago land immediately.

6:11Reddick was cycling through in 20th during green flag stops after grabbing a P10 stage one when a piece of stray debris pierced his nose, puncturing the radiator and oil cooler. It wasn't tire wear driver error or lack of pace. It was a freak mechanical puncture. Yes, you're thinking we ran over the season we did, but it was not a points paying race. So I'm not weighing too heavily on this track. But when we look at his career at Dover, he ranks seventh overall in driver rating proving he has the discipline and the rhythm for high load tire shredding surfaces. When looking at comparable high fall off tracks, reddick is elite. Take Miami for instance. At homestead, he flat out leads the charts in driver rating, mastering the trends. Mastering the transition from the outside fence better than almost anyone in modern NASCAR. At the Lady in Black, reddick boasts the second highest active driver rating and has stacked up the fourth most stage points in the field. Across his 14 career, Darlington starts. Reddick has zero DNFs, matching Denny Hamlin's spotless survival record there. For a driver who's signature style is skimming centimeters off the outside wall on the cushion,

7:14he collects virtually zero Darlington stripes while still maintaining blinding speed. Tyler reddick doesn't just run the high line, he owns the razor's edge. And at a place that ruins right sides, he makes it look effortless. So what to watch for with this guy in practice? Watch how early in a run he commits to turn three and four near the fence. If the car rotates effortlessly without him having to scrub off momentum, the 45 is dialed in. Let his tires warm up, then track his fall off between lap five and lap 20. If he's running consistent lap times up against the wall while others slip backward, he's primed for a win. If you're worried about Chicago and don't be, that was bad luck, not bad driving. Reddick leads the ratings at homestead, ranks top seven at Dover, and has never DNFed in 14 Darlington starts, despite writing the fence every single lap. The 45 is as close to guaranteed stage points and top five upside as you can get lock him in. Okay, moving on to our final pick for the week. I've got the five car of Kyle Larson, he's race Darlington 17 times average finish for him is 14.1. He's got seven top fives landing him top fives in 41% of his races.

8:23Nine top 10s puts him in the top 10 in 53% of his runs. He's got 1,070 laps lead, averaging 62.9 laps lead per race, and he too has won win at the track. He's a stage point magnet collecting 21 times out of 28 stages and has six stage wins. If there is a cushion to write or a fence to scrape, Kyle Larson will find it. He doesn't just run the high line, he lives it. Let's look at the tracks that reward pure car control right up against the wall. Homestead Miami completely owns the top spot in both driver rating and stage points collected there. Dover, he leads the field in driver rating and ranks second in stage points on the brutal concrete, and Chicago land. He qualified on the front row this season, led 23 laps, and grabbed nine stage points before bad luck dropped him to a P-34 finish. Now don't let the box scores from his last three Dalin can race his full you a suspension issue took him out early in the spring of the 25 season. He finished P-19 in the fall of the 25 season, while still scoring stage points in both stages, and the spring race this season looked bad only on paper.

9:29Larson started P-4, ran inside the top five all day, finished fifth in stage one, third in stage two, and he led 20 laps. A broken toe link with just 10 laps to go dropped him to P-32, but the Ross speed and execution were elite for 95% of that race. Even with that rough three race stretch, Larson holds on to the third best active driver rating at 100.9 at the track two tough to 10. He has led a massive 1,070 laps like you heard earlier, and sits second only to Denny Hamlin in total stage points collected. Okay, so what are we going to watch for in practice for this guy? Momentum of turn two. Watch how close he gets to the wall exiting that corner. If the number five Chevy carries momentum off the corner without getting arrow tight against the fence, he will be unstoppable on those long runs. Listen to the communication between Larson and Cliff Daniels. If Daniels is actively managing Larson's pace early in a run to protect that right rear, it signals they're setting up for a dominant 500 miles. Now don't let Kyle's recent finishes at the Lady in Blacks carry you off. Larson started P4 here in the spring grabbing those 14 stage points, and he led 20 laps before mechanical failure with that 10 to go.

10:36He's the ultimate rune rider, and when you pair his Ross speed with dominated points, he's a must start to kick off the chase. If you finished the regular season with leftover allocations for guys like Larson, you left points on the table. I myself had three left going in the Daytona. We're not making that mistake in the chase. We're unleashing the five right out of the gate at a track built for him. Don't hoard your heavy hitters. Play them where they have the highest ceiling, and that is Darlington. The regular season is over, and the allocations have reset. You get five uses for the next 10 races, and then the chase, it's use them or lose them. Do not sit on guys like Larson, Hamlin, and Redick waiting for the perfect moment. Darlington is the perfect moment. Put your heavy hitters to work right now, and start the playoffs with a massive points day. Okay, so there you have it, your three drivers for Darlington raceway starting the chase off this weekend, taking a look back at the final apt weekly fantasy league. We've got 459 registered teams, 291 points scoring folks at Daytona. We lost four more people giving into the super speedway.

11:40Now, there was some shakeups in the top 10, but for the most part, there was just movement. Most of the folks that were in the top 10 still stayed there, including our leader, Tiny Ocho Racing. Only he has a small lead over our new second place team, what the F tiny Ocho is leading by a mere five points. So we have a pretty good chase shaping up points are pretty tight up front. Okay, well, there you have it for the week. Thanks for hanging out for the final apt weekly fantasy segment of the show. I am R Audi Dragon. We'll see you at WWT for the enjoy Illinois 300 next week. Range anxiety battery technology and DC fast chargers, the electric vehicle transition is messy. My name is Bode and I am the host of the kilowatt podcast each week. I bring you fair, independent and unfiltered takes on electric vehicles and autonomous driving technology. No marketing gloss just the facts on how this technology is changing the way we live and drive. Whether you're an EV owner, EV curious or just a fan of technology, subscribe to the kilowatt podcast and join our community today.