Daily Fantasy NASCAR: Drivers to target at Bristol

— -- This week in NASCAR, we learned that Joe Gibbs Racing is indeed ahead of other teams. I mentioned that in my Saturday column, but gave Matt Kenseth only an "honorable mention" among my high-salary picks. Kenseth dominated Sunday's race, putting up 120 fantasy points when nobody else totaled more than 72.

I also learned more about putting together a six-man roster while staying under the salary cap. A curveball this week was that there were no drivers in the $6,000s in salary. The dream lineup included two drivers in the $9,000s (Kenseth and Martin Truex Jr.), and the other four all cost between $7,100 and $8,100. The drivers in the $5,000s just didn't provide enough bang for the buck.

I also learned that just narrowly missing the money while simultaneously coming down with a severe stomach virus is, how should I say, less than ideal. But you probably would've guessed that.

This week, the Sprint Cup Series rolls on to Bristol, a high-banked short track, for some Saturday night action. While it is a far cry from the fast two-mile Michigan track we raced at last weekend, I expect to see Gibbs cars again at the front. JGR has won seven of the past 13 races at the track, and that doesn't include one race won by one its current drivers, Carl Edwards, while he was with Roush Fenway Racing.

In fact, the current four-driver Gibbs lineup has combined for 13 Bristol wins, hopefully a lucky number when you pick your fantasy team this week.

This is a short track, but I don't equate it closely with the other two short tracks. Instead, I look a little more at Dover performance -- another high-banked concrete track.

This race is 500 laps, so the importance shifts a little bit from finishing position to laps led and fastest laps, as there are a lot of chances to accumulate points, with 0.75 on the line every lap.

Here's an appetizer for who to watch for in Saturday's race. But be sure to check back on Friday, after practices have been run and the starting lineup is set, for the main course.

I'm starting my team with ...

Matt Kenseth won the race earlier this season at Bristol from the pole, totaling 75.75 points. That's actually the fewest he's had in his past four Bristol races. He's averaged more than 90 DraftKings fantasy points per race in the past four. He's led at least 25 laps in each of the past eight Bristol races and totaled more than 30 fastest laps in seven of the past eight (12 in the other). In other words, all the potential is there for a big fantasy number.

His Dover numbers are solid as well. He led 19 laps there earlier this year before finishing 39th, but his three Dover races before that all led to finishes of seventh or better and at least 53.5 fantasy points.

But going back to Bristol, Kenseth has led 688 laps there in the past five seasons, more than 200 better than any other driver. He also leads the series in fastest laps there in that time.

Keep your eye on these four

The pole sitter: Matt Kenseth showed how you can rack up points from the pole last week, and Bristol is a great opportunity for the same thing to happen, given how many laps there are. Going back to 2005 (when NASCAR began tracking all the stats used in fantasy NASCAR), the pole sitter at Bristol averages 61 fantasy points per race. The next best starting position, strangely, is 21st, with 44. The pole sitter has averaged 87.8 laps led per race. The next best is 51.1.

Kyle Busch: This is all dependent on how you feel about a gamble. Busch missed the spring race here and put up minus-16 and 17.75 in the two Bristol races last year. But Busch struggled all of last year, and he's a new driver this year. In 2013, he averaged 67.25 points per race here. Busch is a four-time Bristol winner who has led as many as 415 laps in a race here (and four times has gone over 150). In fact, going back to 2005, the two highest single-race scores at any track both belong to Busch at Bristol.

Kyle Larson: Larson came through big at Michigan, thanks to his poor starting position and good finish, the recipe for a nice number from a lower-salary driver. Larson has run three Cup races at Bristol and hasn't finished any worse than 12th while not starting better than 14th in any race. That's a nice pass differential total of plus-45. He led 90 laps here in the spring, and he'll pull out all the stops for a win, since it's his only way to make the Chase. He's also never finished worse than 11th in three Cup races at Dover.

Ricky Stenhouse Jr.: I leave you with a somewhat low-cost option, remembering the lineup breakdown that put up the best score last week involved none of the super-low-cost drivers. Stenhouse has three top-5 finishes in his Cup career, and two have come at Bristol. He has nine top-10s, with three at Bristol, including his past two and the only one this year. While he's never led at Bristol, his fastest-lap numbers indicate it's just luck. Over 2014 and '15, Stenhouse ran more fastest laps at Bristol than drivers such as Denny Hamlin, Greg Biffle, Clint Bowyer and Tony Stewart.

That's all I have for you this week. My non-NASCAR advice for you this week: Don't catch the stomach bug I had.