DraftKings NASCAR DFS Picks for Darlington: Fantasy NASCAR Strategy and Picks for the Southern 500

Darlington Raceway and the famed Southern 500 lead off the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series playoffs.

Darlington is a 1.366-mile, egg-shaped oval with steep banking in the corners and a very old surface that’s abrasive on tires. The high-wear nature means drivers will have to be good on both the short run and the very long run in case this race ends with a long green flag stint.

Thankfully, some cars ran as many as 46 laps in practice, making my practice FLAGS data ultra useful this weekend.

In addition, you can check out my NASCAR projections in the NASCAR Models on FantasyLabs, complete with floor, ceiling, median, and ownership projections.

My projections, along with Stephen Young’s from RotoGrinders, are available in our new NASCAR DFS package. You can read more about what the package entails here.

Let’s not skip the best part — my Perfect% metric — a metric that tells you how often certain racers appear in the optimal lineup when running 10,000 race simulations.

And don’t forget about the tools that FantasyLabs has to offer, like our Lineup Optimizer to effortlessly create up to 300 lineups or our Lineup Builder if you like to hand-build your lineups.

So, without further ado, here’s my strategy guide and NASCAR DFS picks for the Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway.

Southern 500 DFS Core Picks

Instead of calling them cash-game picks, I’ll call them core picks, as these are picks I like in all formats. However, it’s important to note that very often core picks tend to go over-rostered in tournaments, so while they should still be used plenty, it may be prudent to sometimes go underweight on these drivers if you think they’ll be significantly over-rostered.

Two of the big four: I think you’ll want two of the big four drivers to have the best shot at grabbing dominator points, and I could even see how you might want three of the four to really elevate your floor by ensuring at least one of these drivers grabs dominator points.

So who are the big four?

By my model, and by DraftKings salary, it’s the four highest-priced drivers: Denny Hamlin, William Byron, Kyle Larson, and Ryan Blaney.

I’ll take polesitter Hamlin, and give me the cheapest in Ryan Blaney as well, for my two favorite core plays from the big four. However, I could certainly be swayed in any direction among these four.

But I love the place-differential potential from Blaney, and he was tops in FLAGS, and Hamlin is the most likely dominator starting on pole. Hamlin also has, by far, the best track record here among active drivers.

Alex Bowman and Brad Keselowski ($7800 and $7600): These two drivers start 29th and 32nd, but both fared better over the long run in practice, where each ranked 85th percentile or better in long-run speed.

That makes them solid cash game plays for their place differential alone, but I could definitely see an avenue where you’d want to be underweight on them in tournaments.

However, both are fine to play in all formats.

Southern 500 DFS Tournament Picks

The other two of the big four: I gave Hamlin and Blaney, but Byron was the dominant car here in the spring, while Larson always puts up a ton of fastest laps here and has been the dominant car at Darlington several times despite just one win.

You’ll want plenty of both in tournament formats.

Ty Gibbs ($6900): Gibbs is certainly a great tournament pick, but I’m fine riding with him in cash games too. The youngest Toyota driver was clearly the class of the first practice group, ranking seventh overall in group-adjusted FLAGS, giving him top-10 upside.

Gibbs finished ninth earlier this year at Darlington, and he finished second in one of the two races at this track last year.

At $6900, a top 10 would almost certainly get him into the optimal lineup after starting 16th.

Zane Smith and AJ Allmendinger ($6200 and $6000): Smith starts 24th, while Allmendinger starts 22nd, but both should be in your tournament group of drivers.

Smith ranked 15th and Allmendinger ranked 14th in my group-adjusted FLAGS, with Allmendinger slightly better on short runs and Smith slightly better on long runs.

In addition, both have shown upside at this track type.

Allmendinger has finishes of 18th and 13th in his last two starts here, but more importantly, he has four straight top-eight finishes at Homestead, which is the best comp to Darlington.

Smith, meanwhile, finished 12th here and 11th at Homestead earlier this year.

Practice speed plus track and track-type history are both there for these two.

Austin Cindric ($7500): Remember how I mentioned you could possibly go underweight on Bowman and/or Keselowski? That’s because in the same price range, it appears Austin Cindric has arguably the most upside of anyone below $8300.

Cindric ranked second in FLAGS, and he closes the gap to teammate and one of the big four in Blaney over the long run as well.

Aside from a 31st-place run where he ran into issues, Cindric has always finished 20th or better here, including finishes of 13th and 11th in his last two starts here, with the 11th-place finish coming earlier this year.

His consistent improvement here, plus a very strong practice, shows me he has top-five upside. The bigger question is whether it goes unrealized, as it often seems to do for the fourth-year driver.

That means we shouldn’t go crazy, but I like getting some leverage here and using him in roughly one-sixth to one-fifth of your lineups in a big tournament format.

Pictured: Denny Hamlin
Photo credit: Mike Watters, Imagn