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.
We had another huge winner last week at Daytona, and if you somehow missed it, here it is again:
Huge win! Congrats to hall-d and all of the other winners we’ve had. Click the image above to check out even more of them!
Kentucky Speedway
We head to Kentucky for a 200-lap, 300-mile run around their 1.5-mile track, which is actually the last 1.5-mile track we’ll see until the middle of September. We’ll see a bunch of road courses and short tracks until then, so this will be the safest track for cash games that we’ll see for a while.
As for Kentucky itself, it’s a mostly standard 1.5-mile track (that’s similar to Las Vegas and Kansas), but it’s not without its own quirks. Most notably is turn #3, which can be a challenge for drivers who don’t have a lot of experience at this track. Keep that in mind when researching drivers!
Let’s first look at where fantasy production has been coming from over the last 5 races here:
Things look mostly typical for a 1.5-mile track, but since it’s Freebie Friday today, let’s break it down a little more…
Now we’re starting to get a better idea of where dominator production and value are coming from. We can tell that the heavy hitters tend to start up front, but there’s not as sharp of a dropoff with the back half of the field like there is at a lot of other tracks. We can look at those starting around 15th to 30th to return a lot of value this week, especially those with good track history here.
Monster Energy drivers
We only have three Monster Energy drivers this week, but it’s a pretty top-heavy group. We have a pretty important decision to make on one of them, so let’s get into that now:
Kyle Busch ($14,100) – Busch brings by far the most experience/success to Kentucky this week, but it also comes at a very steep price. He’s raced here 10 times in the Xfinity series, and sports one of the best stat lines you’ll see of any driver at any track: three wins, eight top-10s, 776 total laps led, seven races with 60+ laps led, two races with 162+ laps led, and an average finish of 2.57 over his last seven races. He certainly has the capability of paying off his super-high salary, you just have to decide if he does enough this year to do that or not. DFS Army members, stay tuned for my notes after qualifying because this will be the first thing I address!
Paul Menard ($9,400) – Menard has been sort of a mixed back at Kentucky. He doesn’t dominate here (5 laps led in seven races), hasn’t been super consistent (he’s had a driver rating as low as 83.2 and finished 32nd or worse twice), and has only finished higher than he’s qualified once. He’ll have a better car this time around, which could definitely help him, but for his price, I’d be a little cautious in cash and lean more towards GPP use for him this week.
Ty Dillon ($8,800) – Ty, on the other hand, has actually had a fair amount of success here. He doesn’t have a victory yet, but he does have thee top-5s, five top-10s, and has led a whopping 270 laps in his seven races at Kentucky. He’ll be driving the same #3 RCR car this week that he’s used in the past, and I actually like him as a dominator pivot in tournaments (in the event something happens to Kyle Busch and/or a select few other drivers). He’ll likely have a solid cash game floor as well, so don’t be afraid to go here if his qualifying position is favorable.
Xfinity drivers
Christopher Bell ($10,800) – Bell sees a hefty price increase this week, though that shouldn’t be much of a surprise. He actually hasn’t raced here in a stock car, but he has three races under his belt in the truck series. His first race was fairly lackluster, but once he got into a better truck and had some experience things started to click. He won the truck race last year (while leading 54 laps), and considering his performances this year, that tells me all I need to know. All formats, all day long.
Elliott Sadler ($10,600) – Sadler has led his share of laps here, but he hasn’t dominated a Kentucky race since 2012. I don’t really see that changing this week, but you could always take a few shots with him as a dominator in tournaments. This is one of the very few times I’d suggest that with him, so don’t get too carried away! As always, he’s a solid cash play if you can fit him into your lineup(s).
Justin Allgaier ($10,200) – Allgaier has plenty of experience here (eleven races since 2009), but hasn’t shown any dominator potential (only 29 total laps led). He certainly knows his way around this track (seven top-10s and three top-5s), but I worry about his upside this week if he qualifies near the front. For a dominator pivot, I’d probably look elsewhere this week. If he winds up qualifying near the back then he’ll be a great choice in all formats.
Tyler Reddick ($9,000) – Reddick showed dominator potential here last year (he led 66 laps on his way to a victory), but he also didn’t have any big names to contend with. Still, the potential is there, and he would make an interesting dominator pivot for lineups that you aren’t using guys like Kyle Busch.
Spencer Gallagher ($8,500) – Gallagher is back in the mix after his little “vacation.” He has two problems working against him this week; for one, this is the most expensive he’s been all year, and two, he’s never finished better than 13th here in the Xfinity or truck series. That wouldn’t be a big deal if he were still in the $6,000 to $7,000 range, but for $8,500 we may want to consider other options. Proceed with caution!
John Hunter Nemechek ($8,200) – JHN is one such option. He’ll be in the #42 car again this week, one that we know is capable of a top-5 finish. This will be his first run here in a stock car, but he has two top-5 finishes in the truck series at this track, so he certainly knows his way around turn 3. He’s a bit underpriced for what he’s capable of, so be sure to take advantage of it!
Matt Tifft ($8,000) – Tifft has been decent most of the year, but he’s shown some real promise at Kentucky; he’s finished 9th and 5th in four attempts here with a driver rating of 94.9 and 97.6. He’s yet another option to consider over Gallagher, and I wouldn’t be afraid to take shots with him in tournaments even if he starts in the top-10.
Michael Annett ($7,200) – Not only has Annett averaged 34.35 DKFP at 1.5-mile tracks this year, he has an average finish of 13.22 here along with four top-10 finishes in nine attempts. He’s also had three races with a driver rating of over 100, reaching as high as 112.2. His last few races here haven’t been quite that good, but there’s no denying that he knows his way around this track, and he certainly has a car capable of repeating one of his prior performances.
Jeremy Clements ($6,700) – Clements has finally found some consistency this year, with an average finish of 16.75 in the last four races, but his 1.5-mile performances haven’t been the best in 2018 (a measly average of 15.55 DKFP). His ceiling will be directly tied to his starting position, and unless a large portion of the field DNF’s, I don’t anticipate him finishing much better than around 20th today.
David Starr ($5,900) – I’ll end today’s article with one of the better value plays available; Starr has averaged 25 DKFP at 1.5-mile tracks this year (which would yield a 4.24x return at his current salary), and has more experience here than most others do (seven races since 2012). A 30 DKFP performance would not be out of the ordinary, and depending on his starting position, he could see a ceiling of 40 DKFP or more.
And that’s going to wrap it up for today! It’s Freebie Friday today, so be sure to check out some of the free VIP content we have available today, such as our MLB research station and the rest of our MLB content coming out today (including mine, the MLB Cash Academy). We also have a 4-game WNBA slate tonight, an MMA card tomorrow, and some more soccer goodies on the way.
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