Good morning Army! Welcome to this week’s NASCAR VIP breakdown for the Monster Energy race at Chicagoland Speedway. It’s been a while since we’ve seen a 1.5-mile track, so I’m excited to get back to a cookie-cutter track for a change. We head back to Daytona next week, so take advantage of this comparatively calm track while you can. In other words, get those cash games in while you can, because next week is one of the few weeks that we don’t want to play them. More on that next week; for now, let’s dig in to what we have this week!
Chicagoland Speedway
Chicagoland Speedway has a fairly basic 1.5-mile setup that is very similar to Texas and Kansas by design, but also with some elements of Atlanta (tires wearing faster) and Auto Club (the need for long-run speed). If you recall from last week, I said that Sonoma was the second safest track on the circuit. Want to take a guess as to which track is in third place? That’s right, Chicagoland. Like we saw yesterday, we can expect long green flag runs (not counting any weather concerns), so we want to be sure to take those who have been good on the long haul this year.
Overton’s 400
Unlike last week, we have a fair number of laps at Chicagoland, so that puts more emphasis on the need for dominators this week. If you played Xfinity yesterday, I would approach this race the same way on DraftKings (2 dominators for all formats with some single dominator lineups in GPP). On FanDuel I would go after one dominator in all formats and pick up any additional dominator points with your studs as a bonus.
Lineup construction / correlation
With the way qualifying turned out, we have several potential dominators starting very deep in the field, so don’t be afraid to use them as your primary and/or seconday dominators. Remember, you don’t HAVE to get the first chunk of laps led to have success here. Just look at what happened with Kyle Larson yesterday in the Xfinity race; he qualified first, had to start from the rear, and still managed to hit nearly 100 DKFP with zero place differential. Remember, this is a safe track that favors the long run. Keep that in mind when building lineups.
Because there are so many studs/dominators starting in the back, I’m expecting this to be a high-scoring slate. Since a lot of that scoring will come from place differential and finishing position, we need to be sure to grab as many of those drivers as we can. This is different than dominator points because multiple drivers have a path to high scoring this time.
With this in mind, stars & scrubs lineups are not only viable, but building like that is probably a necessity (especially in cash). I even like the idea of double punting this week, and you guys know I don’t like to do that! This is all partly because the mid-range is not very strong this week, which is a big hit to the balanced lineup approach from last week.
Cash games approach
You guys seemed to like me doing the article this way last week, so here we go again!
If you haven’t read my intermediate article that goes over how I build cash game lineups, you can do so here (scroll down near the end of the article, it’s under the “cash games / roster construction” section). It may seem like I’m bouncing around in this article, but that’s just how I build lineups.
As you can see on the charts above, all systems are go this week for cash games. I’d encourage everyone to not only back their GPP entries with them, but make a ladder or two as well and take advantage of people who try to get cute and fade good chalk in their cash games. Trust me, it will happen.
Chalky cash plays
IMPORTANT: Normally we like to discuss floors for cash games, but with how NASCAR scoring works (and how qualifying played out), the drivers with the highest floors today also have some of the highest ceilings. With that in mind, it’s absolutely critical that you use these guys in cash because if they go out and have a normal race, they will have big scores and it will be unlikely for you to cash. Now, you don’t have to take every single one of them in the same lineup, but if they are all absent from your cash lineups, then you’re probably going to have a bad day.
The super obvious play today is Truex Jr. He starts 36th and drives one of the best cars in the field, and we know he’s extremely capable at these 1.5-mile tracks. He has a realistic floor of about 60 DKFP with a ceiling of 125+ today.
Next up are Hamlin and Johnson. Because they are pretty close in price, and because he has performed better this year, I would lean towards Hamlin if you have to pick between them. Hamlin can pop off a top-5 which would give him a huge score, and if he snags a few lead/fastest laps he could rival Truex in scoring. Johnson is more likely to see a top-15 to top-10, but that’s still a lot of scoring potential.
After those guys we can look at Buescher as our first punt. He’s almost always in play at 1.5-mile tracks as it is, but he’s a super easy play when he starts dead last.
For cash games I would recommend taking Truex + Buescher as a core and building from there. You could then add in Hamlin or one of the other cash studs/dominators (see below). You could take Johnson as well, but if you prefer to grab a different stud instead (and double-punt to make it happen), that’s certainly an option.
Cash dominators
Truex can dominate this race so we can use him as one of our dominators in cash. Harvick, Kyle Busch, and Larson can all do it too, so any one of them can be used as a primary or secondary dominator for cash (I would rank them in that order). All four of these offer place differential and a top-5 finish, so they can all return plenty of value even if they don’t lead any laps.
Blaney has a pretty good shot to lead early but I’m not sure how long he can stay out front beyond the first stage. Still, he’s fine for cash games if you want to go this route, since he has a fairly easy path to a 5x return.
Cash value drivers (under $7k)
We already hit on the best one (Buescher) but there are some others we can look at too. Lajoie would be one of my first choices, simply because he has a decent floor and one of the better cars in his price range. He doesn’t need to do much to hit a 4x return, and his low price could help us grab another high-scoring stud. After them, I’d probably look at Kahne if you don’t like one of those two options.
Cash value drivers (above $7k)
Unfortunately there’s not much to love in this price range for cash this week, but there’s are some options to like if you want to go this route. McMurray leads the way here followed by Newman. The rest are just starting a little too high for me to feel safe using in cash games.
Cash studs (above $8k)
I already touched on the important ones and they are who I would recommend for cash games. The rest are all GPP options as far as I’m concerned.
Take a quick breather….okay, time for GPP!
Tournament approach
Even though this looks to be a solid track for cash games, there are plenty of ways we can be a little different to try and win some tournaments. Fading the chalk in hopes that they crash is a very viable option this week, and so is having just the right pivot somewhere. I wouldn’t go crazy and fade all of the chalk because some of it will wind up in the winning lineup. All you need are small fades/pivots here and there to put yourself in a good spot to take advantage of a chalky driver having a bad day.
That said, I would build your tournament lineups the same exact way you do your cash ones. You can run some single dominator lineups as well, and load up on place differential/finishing position with the other 5 spots.
Chalky plays
Of this group I give Truex the best chance of having a strong day, so I would have the most exposure to him. He has the easiest path to be in the winning lineup so I would be sure to have plenty of exposure to him, even in tournaments. You can always make some lineups without him, but this is one of those times where eating the good chalk and being different somewhere else is probably the best option.
Feel free to mix/match/fade Johnson, Hamlin, and Buescher though. I would probably fade/go light on them in that order (Johnson the easiest to fade, Buescher the easiest to keep).
Dominators
This is one of the first ways you can try to be just different enough to be different. You can take one of the chalky stud/dominator drivers and pair them up with one of the studs starting up front to use as a co-dominator. I would rank them in this order: Logano/Kurt, Brad K/Bowyer, then Chase. Blaney of course is an option, though I don’t think he’ll be overly sneaky. I would prefer to take Blaney with somebody like Harvick or Kyle Busch instead, since that combo may go overlooked with people flocking to the studs in the back. Jones is always a long-shot dominator option, so feel free to sprinkle him around a little too.
Unless Blaney wrecks and wipes out half the field in the first lap, I see no realistic way for Menard to hold the lead or dominate. I see him giving up the lead to Blaney and then falling back to a top-15 or so finish.
Value drivers (under $7k)
This is another tough area to go fade-happy in. Buescher is really good (considering the car he has) at these 1.5-mile tracks, and a top-20 finish is well within his reach. There’s always a chance of something happening, but this track is just too safe for me to count on it. I would prefer to eat some more chalk here and win somewhere else.
If you want some pivots, you can look at Matt DB, McDowell, Bayne, Ragan, and Ty for the cheaper guys. For punts I’d look at Cassill, Chastain, and that’s about it. I don’t see the rest having any realistic way of moving up past these other cars. You could set min/max exposures to these guys and let the DS mix and match them around for you, or build a stud/dominator core and get exposure to these guys equally in hopes that you landed on the right core.
Studs (above $8k)
Kurt, Chase, and Jones are all cheap enough that they could potentially be a tournament winner if they can hold their position or move up a little. It’s not super likely, so I wouldn’t go nuts here, but you can sprinkle them into any lineup regardless of how many dominators you use otherwise.
Value drivers (above $7k)
This entire salary range could be used for GPP purposes, but the there are three I like best are (in this order): Bowman, Suarez, then Austin. You could use Menard in hopes that he manages a top-5 finish somehow, but I would not use him as a dominator.
That’s going to do it for this one! Remember to always practice proper bankroll management and make use of those cash ladders. There are some weather concerns so keep your eye on that, but I don’t try to build lineups around weather so I didn’t want to include any of that in here. If the weather starts looking bad close to lock we can cross that bridge when we get there, but for now I would focus on building the best lineups you can. Good luck today!!