Hello fellow Army members, and welcome to my VIP article for the upcoming race at Fontana! We have a unique race track this week, and a brief summary can be found here with the Xfinity preview. Looking forward, let’s first look at the difference between what happened last week and what to expect this week.
Fontana / Auto Club Speedway
If you recall, I mentioned Phoenix had quick 1-mile laps and a fair amount of cautions, which typically led to cars going laps down in a staggered formation. If you look at the race results (specifically, how many laps the drivers completed), you’ll see how that came to be. You saw a fair amount of cars on the lead lap or 1-2 laps down, but then you saw clusters of cars 3 laps down, then 4 laps, then 5, and so on. Basically, the cars in those staggered clusters had zero chance of gaining any positions (outside of other cars wrecking) because they simply could not race their way back to the lead lap. There wouldn’t be enough free passes or wave-arounds for that to happen.
Fontana is a different beast. Rather than going laps down in staggered groups, cars here go down gradually and in larger groups. The long, 2-mile laps here favor raw horsepower and superior aerodynamics over the ability to quickly maneuver around a shorter flat track. Unless a massive crash happens, the slower cars simply don’t have what it takes to keep up with the faster ones here.
Think about it like this; take a handful of your favorite modern sports cars. Corvettes, Camaros, Mustangs, Chargers, etc. Put them on a runway with a bunch of random family sedans (Impalas, Sentras, Corollas, etc) and have them all take off. Before long, the sports cars pull away and continue to do so more and more the longer the race goes on. There are no complex turns for the slow cars to gain any ground or restrictor plates to keep things even; they are simply outclassed by raw horsepower. This is exactly what happens at Fontana (Michigan and Pocono too, for that matter).
What does this mean for lineup construction? First, take a look at these numbers:
This shows what would have been the average DKFP earned (by starting position) over the last five Xfinity races (note that one outlier was removed; when Kyle Busch started 39th and finished 3rd with 25 laps led. If a stud qualifies back there we certainly want them, but the focus here is on the less capable cars so we want to study their numbers instead).
This is the exact opposite of what typically happens at a plate race, so our approach should reflect that as well. We want fast cars who can outrun the slower ones, but since those fast cars generally qualify high here (again, raw horsepower), place differential won’t be as much of a factor unless we get a stud who manages to qualify near the back. There is always a chance that a big wreck wipes out a lot of those faster cars, but as the laps go by, cars here will fall into a single-line formation. If they wreck during a long green flag run they’ll generally only take themselves out. Restarts will have the biggest chance of any real chaos happening.
This means we need to pay close attention to the slower cars to see who looks the fastest. The final practice and 10-lap speed averages will be very telling. It’ll be easy to cram in dominators and studs, but finding just the right cheap drivers/punts will once again be crucial! However, we have a better chance of pinpointing them here since it’s more of a test of raw speed.
Here’s how the last five Monster Energy races looked:
As you can see, things are more spread out. There are several reasons for this (tire preservation, less of a gap between fast and slow cars, more penalties putting faster cars in the back, etc), but note that the highest group is still the 1-5 drivers. If we don’t get any mid-ranged (or faster) cars qualifying in the rear, you can expect the 36-40 numbers to match the 31-35 ones.
To recap: we want fast cars up front to dominate and/or finish strongly, and we only want cars in the back that are fast enough to outrun those ahead of them. Place differential will be a nice bonus if we can get it, but don’t be surprised if it’s harder to come by here compared to other tracks.
Xfinity NXS 300
We kick off the weekend with the 300-mile Xfinity race that will have 150 laps. In five of the last six Xfinity races, we had one primary dominator with an average of 97.1 laps led per race. After that, only around 30 lead laps went to the next guy in line, and the scraps were mixed around random drivers. With this in mind, I prefer a single dominator lineup for all formats this week. Care to guess who dominated three of the last six races here? Joey Logano. Let’s discuss him now. First, a look at his last six Xfinity races here:
At first glance, you may think he’s either boom or bust. If you look at the race results though, you’ll see that those lead laps went to Kevin Harvick, Kyle Busch, and Carl Edwards; three drivers who know how to perform well here. This week, Logano will be the only Monster Energy stud, which is something that’s not happened in his previous nine races. He’s very good here and won’t have much resistance to dominate the race when he’s up front. Unless qualifying winds up very funky, he’ll be my main choice for a dominator this week. His reasonable price (I was expecting $13k or higher) is all the more reason to eat the chalk and win elsewhere.
However, as we saw last week, anything can happen. If you don’t want to take Logano, you’ll need to decide who else might be able to dominate instead. There are really only two others who stand a chance, Christopher Bell and Justin Allgaier. Bell has never raced here and Allgaier only has three lead laps in nine races. Their best chance would be if they won the pole, so keep an eye on qualifying if you want to go this route.
Note: dating back 20 years, no full-time Xfinity driver has ever dominated a race here!
As for everybody else, most of my thoughts were in the preview article. This week will be more about studying practice/qualifying times, so my picks this week will be in my Slack chat notes.
Monster Energy Auto Club 400
This race is similar to the Xfinity one, with 7 of the last 10 races being dominated by one driver with 100+ lead laps (one race with 80), the next large amount going to one other driver, and the rest being sprinkled around. In the other two races, 4-5 drivers shared the lead laps. Given this race has more laps than the Xfinity one, I’ll stick to the same setup from last week; 2 dominators for cash and 1-2 for GPP depending on how you predict the race unfolding.
Monster Energy drivers – dominators/studs
First, a quick look at the studs and potential dominators of the week (stats over the last 5 races)
The numbers point to Kyle Busch and for good reason, he does very well here. In his last six races here he’s finished 8th, 25th, 1st, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. Kevin Harvick had back-to-back 2nd place finishes here in 2015 & 2016 and has been on an absolute tear so far in 2018. Look for these two to be your most likely dominators this week.
Denny Hamlin hasn’t had very good luck here, and of the three times he had the pole, he only led a combined 26 laps. He tends to do better here when he qualifies poorly, so I like him more if he qualifies near the back or will look to fade him if he gets the pole. The others make good GPP pivots, but like the Xfinity drivers, we’ll know more as we get some practice times.
Monster Energy drivers – everybody else
There isn’t a lot of data yet for Erik Jones or Ryan Blaney, so we’ll have to see how they look in practice. Clint Bowyer is one of my favorite targets this week due to his decent history in the #15 car and how much faster he is now in the #14. If he was able to keep pace in his old ride, he should fly through the field and contend for a top 10 this week. He’s underpriced for what he brings to the table. The same thing can be said about Aric Almirola; he’s driving very well and tends to qualify a lot worse than he should. Use that to your advantage if the opportunity presents itself.
The same thing can be said about Jamie McMurray as we say most weeks; he tends to qualify too high. If he qualifies poorly then consider him, but don’t be surprised when he’s starting in the top 10 and finishing in the mid to high teens. The others in this range have fairly mediocre history, but Ryan Newman has looked pretty good so far this year. Keep an eye on him during practice. Paul Menard disappointed us last week, but he was dealing with mechanical issues that kept his car from running well. Don’t overlook him for something that was out of his control. He’s driving the same car that landed in victory lane at a similar track last year, so the car has plenty of speed at these long tracks.
AJ Allmendinger has a pretty solid track history here (two top 10’s and a handful of top 15/20 performances), and is still pretty cheap at $6,000. Keep an eye on him for a salary saving option. Everyone from Chris Buescher on down tends to struggle here, with average running positions near the 30 mark. We’ll watch to see how they look in practice, but don’t get too attached to them.
That’s all for now. We get our first practice runs today, so try to watch them if at all possible. The numbers tell us a lot, but there’s always something to learn by watching them in action. See you guys/gals in Slack! @nillyJay
