DraftKings Fantasy NASCAR Picks: Texas

I’m playing DraftKings this season and will be posting my picks here each week. Disclosure: If you want to play and sign up using this link, DraftKings will give my website a commission. Disclosure No. 2: I might be America’s worst daily fantasy player.

Last week’s results: Played the $3 Casual Slingshot game. Finished around 2200th of 5900.

Season results: $8 wagered, $0 won in six contests.

This week’s contest: $4 entry Chrome Horn game with $250,000 total payout.

Texas picks:

— Kyle Larson ($10,300). Thanks to failing to get through inspection before qualifying, he starts 32nd. Even though he’s expensive, I’ll take the point differential en route to another top-five finish.

— Kyle Busch ($9,900). See Larson, Kyle. Except Busch starts even further back (34th) and was fastest in 10-lap average for final practice.

— Clint Bowyer ($8,800). Honestly, this was the last pick I made and I am shaky on it — especially since Bowyer starts third. But I needed a hammer, and I didn’t have enough money to pick Kevin Harvick, Brad Keselowski or Martin Truex Jr.  And though Ryan Blaney was tempting, I haven’t seen enough out of him to feel good about his chances of leading tons of laps. So I ended up with Bowyer. We’ll see.

— Erik Jones ($7,600). Like Larson and Busch, Jones also couldn’t make a qualifying lap due to not passing inspection and starts 36th. He’s also in a backup car, which isn’t ideal, but it was still decent in practice (10th of 17 cars who made 10-lap runs in final practice).

— Ricky Stenhouse Jr. ($7,000). Both Roush Fenway cars have looked really good all weekend, except Trevor Bayne crashed his during final practice. But Stenhouse was fourth-fastest in 10-lap average for final practice and might have a top-five car overall. His ceiling is relatively low since he starts 11th, but the price is right.

— Chris Buescher ($6,000). Another driver whose team couldn’t get through inspection in time to qualify, Buescher finds himself starting 38th. But he was ninth-fastest in 10-lap average for final practice — better than the likes of Jones, Denny Hamlin, Chase Elliott and Jamie McMurray — and comes at a great price.