Hello Army! Welcome to another round of NASCAR fantasy goodness, with Richmond being the flavor this week. I’ll start off with one of the most important things I’ll say all week:
THE XFINITY RACE IS FRIDAY (4/20/18) AND THE MONSTER ENERGY RACE IS SATURDAY (4/21/18). THERE IS NO RACE ON SUNDAY THIS WEEK!
Please keep this in mind and plan accordingly. I don’t want to see anybody here reserve a bunch of contests and forget that the races are starting a day early this week! This is something that favors those of us who pay attention to scheduling, so be sure to take advantage of it this week. As a result, the Xfinity contests aren’t quite as nice as they usually are, but there’s still plenty of money up for grabs. Let’s make sure we get our piece of the pie…or perhaps the whole thing!
Richmond Raceway
We have another short track this week, but just like the other ones, Richmond is unique in its own ways. It’s a “flat” 3/4-mile track with 14° of banking in the corners, which makes it a little slower than Bristol even though the track is longer. It’s mostly comparable to New Hampshire and Phoenix while somewhat comparable to Martinsville. Blending these three tracks along with Richmond will be your best bet for research this week.
Even though it’s a short track, Richmond is considered to be one of (if not the) safest tracks on the circuit. We also don’t have quite as many laps to worry about this week, so that all puts cash games back into play. Utilize those cash ladders!
Xfinity ToyotaCare 250
Now, I know I said that cash games were in play (and they are), but because there are no Monster Energy drivers in the Xfinity race this week, we don’t have an obvious dominator like we do in a lot of other races. That doesn’t mean we can’t play cash games in Xfinity, it simply means we need to pay more attention to who we’re choosing. There are still plenty of good options for our cash lineups, we just have to be sure about who we take for dominators (our cash ladders can’t flourish without them). Not to worry! That’s why we have Slack, so be sure to keep an eye out in the main NASCAR channel (I’ll also have my picks ready to go in my channel before the green flag waves).
Since there are no Monster Energy drivers this week, we’ll likely need two dominators in all formats. Single dominator lineups are always possible, but unless somebody like Justin Allgaier gets the pole, I’m going to lean towards needing two. For now, let’s take a look at where the DKFP is coming from (last five races):
Xfinity drivers
Like most races, it’s the pole-sitter who is typically racking up the most lead/fastest laps here. What’s interesting though is the fact that the driver starting in second is having a really tough time making anything happen here. That should give us a lot of confidence in whoever winds up being the pole-sitter, especially if it’s somebody like Allgaier or Bell.
Remember that Allgaier dominated for a while at Phoenix, a track that is very similar to Richmond! He’s also dominated at Richmond before, making him the most likely candidate to do it again on Friday.
Aside from that, you can see that almost all of the fastest laps are being eaten up by the drivers starting in the top 10. This puts guys like Allgaier, Bell, and Reddick in play no matter where they start, as they tend to take a healthy chunk of fastest laps no matter what track they’re at. Reddick also has a knack for qualifying poorly and finishing in the top 10, so this could be another track where we see him on top of the leaderboards even if he doesn’t lead a single lap. My biggest concern would be with Sadler, as he simply does not dominate races. He’ll likely be fine for cash no matter where he starts, but his ceiling will be directly tied to his starting position.
You’ll also notice that the driver starting in 6th has pretty high stats. This isn’t so much a magic starting spot as it is the fact that two dominators started there, which more just goes to show the potential these faster cars have. We would usually count that as sort of a “dead zone” in the Monster Energy races, but things are a bit different with Xfinity. Place differential isn’t as big of a factor here, so we need these fast cars who are finishing very strongly.
From there, it’s mostly about loading up on finishing position. Austin Cindric, Brandon Jones, Spencer Gallagher are all great options with top 10 potential, and none of them are priced above $9,000. I’d recommend considering them for all formats. Kaz Grala could sneak his way into a top 10 finish as well (he finished 12th and scored 39 DKFP at $7,200 (5.4x) at Phoenix), but he’s a bit riskier so I would lean more towards GPP use with him.
My “secret” Xfinity drivers
In the preview article, I mentioned that there were three drivers I liked in the cheaper range this week (drivers X, Y, and Z). Let’s take a look at them now:
Jeremy Clements ($6,400) – I wrote him up as a favorite play last week, and I’m going right back to him. Yes, he wrecked out early and burned a lot of lineups. But go back and look at what happened; cars in front of him started a chain reaction and he was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. That’s not the fault of Clements, who will probably see suppressed ownership this week due to recency bias. I’ll like him more the lower he starts, so don’t go locking him in if qualifying gets crazy and he starts near the top 10 again.
Vinnie Miller ($6,300) – He’s not exactly a “secret” in the industry, but he has had two straight weeks of burning lineups. Like Clements, this isn’t because of Miller’s inability to perform; his crash at Texas was at a near-frozen track with zero grip, and he was collected in a wreck that had nothing to do with him at Bristol. I think recency will get the better of people here as well, so I’m ready to take advantage of it.
Tommy Joe Martins ($5,100) – His ownership was very low last week (less than 5% is what I was seeing), and because he didn’t return a ton of value, I don’t see that changing this week. He too was involved in a wreck last week, but it was due to other people wrecking in front of him (if you haven’t noticed by now, that’s a pretty common theme at Bristol…which is why we don’t let recency bias get the best of us!). He takes a lot of pride in his team and I can promise you that he’s anxious to get back out there and work his way towards a better finish. He’s one of my favorites again this week, and at $5,100 it won’t take much for him to reach tournament winning value.
Monster Energy Toyota Owners 400
There are 150 more laps for this race, which isn’t too far off of what we had last week. The good news is that Richmond is a lot more predictable than Bristol, which should make pinpointing our dominators easier. It’s pretty unlikely that we’ll see a single dominator performance here, so I’d look to roster two dominators for all formats, with a third possibly coming from one of the other studs already in your lineup as a bonus.
Monster Energy drivers
Here are the averages from the last five races:
Everything looks pretty familiar here, except that there’s more DKFP coming from the back. This time, however, it’s not because there were studs starting in the back. Most of the cars starting in the last 10 spots also finished in that same area, there were just a handful finishing in the mid-20’s. That means it’ll be important to find the right cheap/punt plays this week, even if they are chalky. Let’s take a look at most of the field and see how they’ve performed here over the last five races:
Denny Hamlin is a terrific flat track racer, especially here at Richmond. He has three wins and five top-6 finishes here, as well as 1653 laps led in 22 races (75.13 per race on average). Martin Truex Jr also has a fairly solid history here, but he’s cranked it up recently with at least 193 laps led in two of the last three races here. His last two finishes weren’t the best, but make no mistake; he can absolutely dominate and win this race. Hamlin will likely be chalky, though Truex Jr may not be due to recency bias.
Brad Keselowski, Kyle Busch, and Kyle Larson are also viable dominator candidates. Don’t forget about Kevin Harvick; he’s among the fastest in the field and has dominated/won this race in the past.
For value plays, Kasey Kahne, Jamie McMurray, Trevor Bayne, Daniel Suarez, and Ty Dillon all look appealing. They have solid track history and have been performing well lately. Any of them could be the link we need to tie everything together, as they are all underpriced for what they bring to the table. Chris Buescher will be available again this week, but remember that shorter flat tracks aren’t his wheelhouse; he’s better suited for 1.5-mile tracks (this is the same thing I said about him at Phoenix, and look at he did there..started 24th and finished 29th). Alex Bowman has not raced here in the #88 car yet, so you can kind of ignore his stats here so far. He should perform much better than his numbers would lead you to believe.
As for the rest, let’s keep a close eye on practice/qualifying and go from there. I don’t want to make this too long since a crazy qualifying can throw everything on its head. Instead, I’d rather present data to give your research a kick-start.
Remember that the Xfinity race is Friday and the Monster Energy race is on Saturday this week, so be sure you can tend to your lineups if you want to play this week! Additional notes and my picks for both races will be in my Slack channel before each race, so I’ll see you guys there!