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NASCAR Calming the Chaos 6/9/18 – Michigan International Speedway

Hello again Army, and welcome this week’s VIP breakdown for the races at Michigan!  We had yet another great weekend at Pocono, with several big winners.  Let’s keep that hot streak going!

Michigan International Raceway

This week we head to what some people (ok, maybe a bit more just some) consider to be the most boring race on the circuit.  Considering it’s the fastest, that seems a bit hard to believe.  But truth be told, this isn’t the most exciting race we’ll see all year.  It’s a 2-mile super-speedway with lots of banking around some much easier turns than what the drivers saw at Pocono.  There usually isn’t a whole lot of craziness going on, and this race can turn into something that feels like 40 drivers racing on a very long straightaway.

It’s basically like going back to Pocono and turning the difficulty down to “easy mode.”  Where driver skill and raw speed were equally important last week, this week is all about raw horsepower and not beating yourself on pit road (and not having a car that sucks).  We can use the results of last week to paint a really good picture of what to expect this week, so be sure to review last week’s notes about drivers to help some with this week.  I’ll go over last week’s results for each race as well.

As far as lineup construction goes, everything I said last week holds true this week, with more emphasis on the slower cars being in an even worse spot than they were last week.  This is because they can’t leverage the lack of some horsepower with superior skill through the tricky turns.  Here, the turns are long and easy, and you can’t do much about not having that extra speed.

The good news is that where there is boring, there is a great opportunity for cash games.  This is especially true for the Monster Energy race with how qualifying turned out, as there are several easy choices made for us already (more on that later).  This should be a great race to help build up some bankroll with cash games while making some risky GPP lineups in case something crazy happens.  I’d probably stick to head-to-heads for the base of your ladders to help avoid the ties in double-ups and 50/50s, as there are usually plenty of bad lineups out there in H2H’s for us to pick on.  Anyway, let’s start digging!

Xfinity LTi Printing 250

As you can see, not much has changed here from last week.  We get 25 more laps which changes very little with how we can approach this race.  The biggest difference is that we have two super-studs to choose from instead of just one, but like last week, they are expensive enough that they either have to dominate (at least half of the race or more) or start from the back and finish in the top-5 to pay off their salaries.  Either way, this is a single dominator race.  Note that we had two dominators last week, but only one of them found their way into the winning lineup.  That’s exactly why I make the recommendations that I do!

One difference this week, however, is that we do actually have some track history to look at here, so let’s do just that:

This tells us that the pole-sitter is not a lock to dominate, so be careful if a driver gets the pole that doesn’t typically dominate.  If Harvick or Busch gets it though, we can depend on them to do so.  The middle of the field is easy to figure out (see the preview article for some key names and stay tuned for Slack notes for the rest), so we will want to focus on the back and how we can get the most out the cheaper drivers that we’ll need.

Last week we saw solid performances by Alex LabbeJoey GaseDavid Starr, and Josh Williams.  All four scored between 30 and 34 DKFP, and are all $6,300 or less this week.  They also had an average running position between 22nd and 26th, so we can look at them as potential cheap plays.

On the other hand, the ones who didn’t get anything going were J.J. Yeley (of course…), Vinnie MillerChad FinchumBrandon HightowerMike HarmonTimmy Hill, and Jeff Green.  Looking at practice times we can see that all of these guys are well behind the pace of the leader (as are Josh BilickiCaesar BacarellaTommy Joe MartinsBJ McLeod, and Morgan Shepherd), so we will want to be very careful with all of these guys this week, especially if they manage to qualify in the 20s.  Don’t be afraid to narrow down your selection of punts this week, which is exactly what I’ll be doing.  My plan is to narrow down my pool of punts to 2-4 options, sprinkle them around, and completely fade the rest (just like I did last week).

Monster Energy FireKeepers Casino 400

Once again, things look pretty similar to last week.  Since we do have a few more laps for this race, you could try for two dominators on DraftKings, but I’d still prefer one dominator and having studs pick up any extras as a bonus.  Two examples would be Truex Jr and Larson who offer place differential, a strong finish, and dominator potential.  These are studs who can return value without dominating, but if they do it’s a nice bonus.  Also, I would only recommend one dominator on FanDuel as the dominator FDFP just isn’t there.

Just as before, lineup construction is the same as last week.  Everything I said about the Xfinity race holds true here, but with even fewer cautions to go around.  Don’t be surprised if this race is comprised of long green-flag runs.

The same cars that were fast last week look to be fast again this week, as they get to once again stretch out their wings on a long super-speedway.  The SHR / Penske Fords and Joe Gibbs Toyotas will look to lead the way, and the Chevy camp looks like it’s finally waking up.  Both Larson and McMurray start deep in the field and have top-10 potential, so they look to be solid chalky cash plays right off the bat.  We also know this is one of Larson’s best tracks, so don’t forget to have some exposure to him in all formats.  The four Hendrick cars have been looking much better lately, so be sure to sprinkle them around as well (JimmieChaseBowman, and Byron).

While we do have qualifying finished already, I want to dig a little deeper tonight before I start making any other driver recommendations.  With that in mind, I’ll have everything ready in my Slack notes tomorrow morning as usual, so stay tuned for that.  This article is going to be short this week because, in all honesty, it’s pretty close to a repeat of last week.  Also, because it’s an “easy” race for the drivers, it’s a lot harder for us to strategize for an edge compared to almost every other track.  We can play the chalk in cash and hope for somebody to blow an engine for our GPP lineups, but that might be all we can do this week.  Don’t worry, the next race is at a road course, so we’ll have that edge again in no time.  For now, see you all in Slack!