DraftKings NASCAR DFS Picks for Talladega: Fantasy NASCAR Strategy and Picks for the Yellawood 500

Talladega hosts the third-to-last race of the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season.

With this also being a drafting track, there is a huge amount of variance. My best model, using machine-learning techniques, can’t even get above a 15-18% predictability out-of-sample thanks to the effects of the drafting package on these cars.

When variance is the name of the game, we rely on two things:

1. Ownership leverage
2. Place differential

And with only 188 laps scheduled, there are only around 115 dominator points available spread among 40 drivers, and the fastest-lap points favor drivers in the back of the pack anyway.

That means forget dominators; this is 100% whether you will have the right combination of finishing position and place differential. And we can often leverage strong finishes in DFS tournaments by people not using enough of certain drivers.

With no practice, there’s no FLAGS, but as always, 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 Yellawood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway.

Yellawood 500 DraftKings DFS Tournament Picks

Stack the Back: It goes without saying, but stacking the back of the field is always a strong strategy at drafting tracks.

With that said, it’s not quite as effective as Daytona, since Talladega tends to be on the calmer side of the two tracks, but chaos can absolutely erupt at any moment.

Additionally, with all the cars so equal in the draft, it’s still nearly impossible to predict a reasonable finishing order, so we mostly rely on leveraging ownership from our plays in the back.

The best leverage by my model is Anthony Alfredo, who projects at around 15% usage but almost 23% optimal.

However, even when stacking the back…

Leverage Ownership: Ricky Stenhouse Jr. should be chalk, but he projects at over 44% ownership while I have him under 39% optimal.

That makes him a good candidate to go underweight on, especially since he has no teammates and could get boxed out of a situation late where one teammate is trying to help another playoff driver teammate advance to the championship round.

The Team Penske cars also appear to be overvalued in my projections by the public, as everyone is aware both Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney are considering this race as a fantastic opportunity to lock one of the two into the championship race at Phoenix with a win.

But things don’t always work out like that, and there’s far more chaos in the finishing order than we think in these, so an underweight approach on these two (playing them near their Perfect% would likely leave you underweight) is a sound move.

Teammate Dynamics: This isn’t so much a pick as helping you with tournament strategy. There are a few notable teammate dynamic situations in play with the playoffs decided after this race.

1. HMS – Alex Bowman is not a playoff car, but his teammates Kyle Larson, William Byron, and Chase Elliott are. This is a great spot for him to be the ultimate HMS teammate and help one of these trio of cars to a win
2. Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) (and 23XI Racing): JGR’s Denny Hamlin is locked into the championship, so he can do whatever he wants. JGR cars Christopher Bell and Chase Briscoe are still in the playoffs looking to make the title race, while Ty Gibbs is out. Gibbs could theoretically help Briscoe or Bell to a win, while Hamlin is probably looking to push one of his 23XI cars to a win if he’s not taking the win for himself. By winning or pushing a 23XI car of Bubba Wallace or Tyler Reddick to a win, Hamlin removes the possibility of a Team Penske car winning or Bell or Briscoe winning, all four of whom might be the favorites should they make the championship race at Phoenix.
3. Team Penske and Wood Brothers Racing (WBR): All hands on deck to get either Logano or Blaney a win here. That means Austin Cindric and WBR’s Josh Berry are here to help these two as their No. 1 priorities.

Featured: Anthony Alfredo
Photo credit: Joe Puetz, Imagn