Hello again everyone, and welcome to this week’s NASCAR Xfinity preview brought to you by the DFS Army! I’m your host @nillyJay and you can follow me here on Twitter to see my NASCAR and MLB content, or you can find me in our Slack channels in #nillys-garage-nas-mlb.
Speaking of MLB, we had another week full of winners. Check out what these guys did:
Congrats guys! We have some good racing coming up this weekend, so I hope to see more members take home some nice prizes. Since that’s what we’re all here for, let’s get to it!
Chicagoland Speedway
We head to Chicagoland this week for the annual race around their 1.5-mile long track. It’s a fast track with lots of banking, similar to Texas and Kansas. (Hint: those would be the tracks to research along with Chicagoland!) We have 200 laps in this race, which puts plenty of importance on selecting the right 1-2 dominators. Feel free to go over the Iowa article to get a rough idea of what you’ll need from this race, as the lap counts are similar.
Kyle Busch dominated 5 races in a row here, but he won’t be participating this week. That puts an interesting twist on things, as the two Monster Energy studs haven’t dominated here in the past. While that’s got a lot to do with Busch taking charge, it does open up some interesting possibilities for some of the Xfinity studs, so we’ll need to be sure to pay close attention to qualifying this week and see how things shake out. For now, let’s take a look at some of the key drivers we’ll see this week.
Fantasy production by starting position (full breakdown is in my Slack channel!)
Monster Energy drivers
Kevin Harvick ($13,200) – Starting at the top is Harvick, who hasn’t dominated or returned a ton of value since his first Xfinity race. He hasn’t really dominated here either, but he has at both Texas and Kansas in the past, so we know he’s capable at this type of track. He’s shown plenty of speed in the #98 this season and has another 100+ DKFP ceiling this week, so don’t sleep on him just because he’s so expensive!
Kyle Larson ($12,700) – Larson is basically in the same boat that Harvick is, the biggest difference being that he’s $500 cheaper. He dominated at Las Vegas this year, which is more similar to Chicagoland than Atlanta is (which is the race Harvick dominated), so you could give a slight edge to him due to that. Either way, there’s a very good chance one of these two dominates this race, but I wouldn’t recommend trying to stack both of them together unless qualifying gets really crazy for several drivers. The most likely outcome is that they both start near the front, and there won’t be enough DKFP to go around to pay off both of their salaries at the same time.
Chase Elliott ($10,000) – It’s been a few years, but Chase once dominated this race, and it was one where Larson was present at as well. Since Kyle Busch won’t be here this time around, that gives Chase a better chance of doing it again this weekend. I like him as a pivot off of Harvick and Larson as a dominator for tournaments, but for cash I’d probably opt for Sadler’s floor instead.
Daniel Suarez ($9,100) – Suarez will drive the #18 this week, which will be one of the fastest in the field. Unfortunately, he hasn’t shown the ability to dominate a NASCAR race, so I worry about his upside for tournaments. I’ll be more interested in him if he winds up starting deep in the field.
Paul Menard ($8,900) – Menard will be in the #22 this week and rounds out the Monster Energy drivers. He’s sort of in a weird spot like Suarez is in, but we can’t ignore a potential top-5 car, especially at this price. His track history paints a picture of him having iffy results here, but he’s never raced here in a car of this caliber before. I wouldn’t worry too much about that.
Xfinity drivers
Elliott Sadler ($10,200) – Sadler managed to have two bad finishes in a row, so I’m sure he will be fired up today to try and claim another top-5. He’s always in play in cash games but be careful with him in tournaments, because as usual, his floor and ceiling will likely be about the same number. That number, of course, being too low to pay off his salary as a tournament winner.
Christopher Bell ($9,800) – Bell has been one of my favorites all season long, and today is no different. He’s almost always a solid cash play and can help win you a tournament from any starting position. Fun fact: at the four 1.5-mile tracks this year, Bell has averaged 58.13 DKFP. He’s only led 5 laps in those four races, but having 21.25 fastest laps per race certainly helps. I see no reason why he can’t do that again today. As always, he’s viable in all formats, no matter where he starts.
Justin Allgaier ($9,600) – Speaking of 2018 performances, do you know which Xfinity regular has led the most laps at these tracks this year? That’s right, Allgaier has. His 180 laps led are by far the most this year (second place is Brandon Jones at 33), and he’s got a shot at doing it again if he can get by Harvick and Larson. How likely is that to happen? Well, not super likely…so I would lean more towards tournament use here unless he starts deep in the field.
Daniel Hemric ($8,600) – I know they had to drop everyone’s salary with the Monster Energy drivers coming back into the mix, but they went just a little too low with Hemric’s. He should be priced as high as the previous two drivers, and his performances at 1.5-mile tracks this year show it; he has an average finish of 6.8 along with an average of 49.63 DKFP over those four races. Needless to say, he’s another one of my favorites today.
Brandon Jones ($8,500) – Jones has performed pretty well overall this year but has been a bit “boom or bust” at 1.5-mile tracks. As I mentioned before, he’s led 33 laps at these races, but he’s also only managed an average finish of 18 with 21.56 DKFP. I always like him as a GPP dominator pivot, but for cash games, you’d be crazy not to use Hemric instead (that is of course unless he starts deep in the field again).
Jeb Burton ($7,400) – Whatever the reason, they keep pricing whoever is driving this car way too low, and here we are again. Although he hasn’t cracked a top-10 yet this season, make no mistake; this is a top-5 car and if he gets it figured out during the race, he could easily be in the winning lineup today. His practice times didn’t look promising, so I’d probably lean more towards tournament use here, but you’ll definitely want some exposure to his potential ceiling.
Kaz Grala ($6,900) – Just when Kaz starts getting things figured out, they go and drop his salary back down. He was averaging 29.25 DKFP at 1.5-mile tracks BEFORE things started clicking, so I’m excited to see what he can do today. He’s shown enough consistency lately that I’d even consider him in cash games.
Special sauce: The $6k and $5k range – There are several drivers I’m really interested in, but I’ll have to save them for my VIP members. You guys in the DFS Army know the drill; I’ll have my thoughts and recommendations in #nillys-garage-nas-mlb shortly after qualifying.
That’s going to do it for now! Be sure to check out or MLB content today, as we have plenty on the way, including my Cash Academy article. Also, you may have heard that DraftKings is now offering tennis. How did we respond? Well…
That’s right, our MMA, soccer, and WNBA/NBA guys are going to be on the front lines helping us win tennis slates now too. We really do everything! If you want a piece of the action, you know where to find us. Until then, good luck today!