Denny Hamlin and Chris Buescher Among NASCAR DFS Picks for Darlington
Dipping back into the pool for this weekend's NASCAR event in Darlington could lead to more unexpected results. Consider the weather is expectedly to be quite warm and likely to be dry. No stray thunderstorms should make an impact.
One intriguing part with Darlington is that the intermediate can feature some very misleading finishes. A driver that has trended a little this week is Ross Chastain. We will get into him later but he has had a bit of a four leaf clover lately in South Carolina.
Toyota has dominated the early portion of the NASCAR season. Does that form hold at Darlington or will Chevy and Ford crash the party?
Denny Hamlin ($11,000 DK, $14,000 FD)
Tyler Reddick won three straight races. Could Denny Hamlin win again this week at Darlington? Hamlin needed that win in Las Vegas last week. It was a rough offseason and that was no secret. The Joe Gibbs Racing driver has the best average finish of 9.3, along with a win last season and four Top 10's since 2023.
He even overcame a "been caught speeding" on pit lane last week to win the race. I joked Kyle Larson would be close to a co-favorite for this race and sure enough he is second on most every board. The fade Larson for Hamlin play is valid again here.
Tyler Reddick is again another option to consider at $9,500 on DK. Some asked about Briscoe, etc. but again the price. The difference between amount of drivers and such makes this more of a DraftKings play. As for Hamlin, the percent play comes into focus here. Using 28% of your cap this week is a risk on FanDuel when the number is only 22% on DraftKings.
As far as dominators go, Hamlin is probably the highest floor play for Darlington.
Chris Buescher ($8,300 DK, $8,000 FD)
Again, the hope is for a relatively low qualifying session for Buescher. The RFK Racing driver is the only one to have five Top 10 results in his last half dozen races at Darlington. One is not going for the laps led here (Toyota guys have double digit rates due to the long runs). Simply, the average start is 12.8 which does carry risk.
Problems sacked his 2024 Spring race where Buescher looked like he could win. He led 21 laps before disaster kept striking.
Chris Buescher at Darlington is a problem people notice too late.
— PitByNumbers | Garage Intelligence (@pitbynumbers) March 20, 2026
6th, 6th, 10th in his last three here.
Not the loudest car early… but one of the cleanest closers in the field.
Feels like another one where he shows up when it matters 👀 pic.twitter.com/yzuvgWsLqz
The price is too good as things even out there with DraftKings and FanDuel when it comes to the middle tier. Brad Keselowski is also a little further down and on the radar here for the same rationale. He is closer to 100% too after offseason surgery.
Justin Allgaier ($6,500 DK, $6,800 FD)
We believe that FanDuel will correct their listing of Alex Bowman eventually. Anyway, this is a total shot in the dark. Justin Allgaier knows he will be racing with Hendrick Motorsports for the next three races at least. Vertigo is nasty and no one truly knows when or if Bowman will return. Just as Kurt Busch sometime.
Allgaier had some bad luck last week in Las Vegas and lost three positions but did have 37 fast laps which was good for around 30 DFS points. It's not much but the expectation is that Allgaier could increase that number at Darlington.
Chase Elliott and William Byron have had some more than solid results at Darlington of late. Does Allgaier with a little comfort gain some this week? The thought process here is that he is worth a further look at least.
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