Good afternoon Army! Welcome to this week’s NASCAR VIP breakdown for the Monster Energy race at Kentucky Speedway. This is a pretty good cash track as it is, but we have lots of solid chalky options for us to use today. With great chalk comes great fade options for tournaments, so this race looks to be packed full of options across the board. Let’s dive right in!
Kentucky Speedway
As I mentioned in the Xfinity preview article, this track has a funky quirk with turn #3. It’s fine once you get used to it, both those that have limited experience here may have more trouble than they would at the other 1.5-mile tracks that aren’t named Atlanta. For now, let’s look at the race as a whole:
Dominators
Notice that there are only 67 more laps today than yesterday’s race, so our approach should be very similar. Two dominators for cash and 1-2 dominators for tournaments is what I recommend. Things have been split pretty evenly here over the last 5 races; two of them had a single dominator, two had a pair of dominators, and one was sort of split down the middle. Since we have stage racing now, I would lean more towards the two dominator approach, but I would be sure to throw in some single dominator lineups as well.
If you’re doing 150 lineups, I’d probably do something like 70% two dominator and 30% single dominator lineups. If you’re only doing 20 lineups, I would probably make a core of 4-5 drivers and pivot a single dominator around them, then do two dominators for however many lineups you have remaining.
For FanDuel, a single dominator is fine for all formats.
Cash games approach
As I mentioned before, cash games are good to go today, so be sure to get those ladders built! Qualifying turned out favorably and we have lots of safety, so let’s take advantage of it. In fact, it turned out so well that two ladders can easily be built this week, so don’t be afraid to go that route.
Note: 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.
Chalky cash plays
Whew, there are a ton of them today! Let’s start at the top:
Truex Jr has the pole today, and he’s no stranger to dominating here (or any 1.5-mile track, for that matter). He’s got a very easy path to leading early here and easily has a top-5 car, so his floor is plenty solid. If you’re only running one cash lineup, I’d take him as your primary dominator. If you’re running two cash lineups, feel free to drop him from one of them, but I don’t recommend playing cash without some exposure to him today.
After that we have a slew of fast cars starting towards the back; Hamlin, Larson, Logano, Johnson, and McMurray are all fantastic plays and should be scattered around any cash lineups you’re running today. Kahne and DiBenedetto make excellent cheap options and are fine in all formats as well.
Cash dominators
I like Truex Jr up front, but it’s no secret that Harvick and Kyle Busch are plenty capable of dominating today as well. You can pair two of these together in cash, or take one and load up with the chalky place differential plays instead. Either way is fine, it’s just personal preference.
Taking two dominators up front will have a lower floor but a slightly higher ceiling, while taking one dominator from the front and loading up on chalky place differential plays will have a higher floor but slightly lower ceiling. Either method is fine in cash today.
Cash value drivers (under $7k)
Kahne and DiBenedetto lead the way here. You can take one or the other or both in the same lineup in cash, as they won’t interfere with each other’s floor/ceiling. Allmendinger can be used in cash but he has a limited ceiling. I would lean more towards GPP for everybody else. That’s not because they are a “bad play” or anything, I just like the floor of these three drivers better. If you want to use any of them for cash, I would recommend Byron, Wallace, or Ty.
Cash value drivers (above $7k)
There’s only one today, and that’s McMurray. Everybody else starts way too high, so I’d recommend saving everybody else for tournaments. If you really, really, REALLY want to, you could use Bowman in cash, but it’s worth the extra $300 to grab McMurray’s floor/ceiling instead.
Cash studs (above $8k)
Hamlin, Johnson, Larson, Logano, and Elliott…in that order. Mix and match as you please, but be sure to have some Hamlin in cash today. There’s no reason not to! You could take Almirola as well, but I prefer to use him when he’s starting 20th or worse. For cash, we’re better off paying up for the higher floor/ceiling that the others in this price range offer.
This intermission brought to you by Martin Truex Jr
Tournament approach
Like I mentioned before, we have tons of great options for tournaments today. Not only do we have some chalky drivers to work with, we also have some fantastic pivot options as well. I don’t expect us to repeat the $105,000 win from last week, but I hope to see some of you taking down some tournaments today!
Chalky plays
Since there are so many today, I’ll get to them in their respective segments.
Dominators
This is the first place we can make some big moves. The nice thing about this race is that since we are making two dominator lineups, we can eat chalk with one dominator and use a pivot in the other. Brad K, Larson, Bowyer, Kurt, Blaney, Elliott, and Jones are those who I would use for pivots, and I like their chances in that order. You can approach this in several ways, but this is what I’d recommend:
For two dominator lineups, I would make batches of lineups rotating around your primary dominators;
Lineup group A: Truex + mix/match dom pivots
Lineup group B: Harvick + mix/match dom pivots
Lineup group C: Kyle Busch + mix/match dom pivots
Lineup group D: fade Truex/Harvick/Kyle Busch, mix/match one or two dom pivots (higher risk)
Of course, if you want to fade any of the main three, then feel free to do that and put those lineups in one of the other groups instead.
Just remember, we don’t want three dominators today, so don’t run three of them together! There aren’t enough dominator points available here to feed three of them. The exception being Larson since he can still pay off his salary without dominating. You can run two dominators + Larson, that’s perfectly fine today.
Value drivers (under $7k)
There are several ways to go here; I like Byron/Wallace the most, followed by Buescher, then Stenhouse/Kenseth, then McDowell/Ragan. I would go heaviest on the first three then ramp down ownership with the other four, as I don’t like their chances of a GPP-winning upside near as much. You can mix/match them with or without Kahne/DiBenedetto, either is a fine option.
For the punts, Ty makes the best option. Otherwise, I would just sprinkle in Cassill, Chastain, and Lajoie sparingly. Unless a lot of people crash, they have a tough path towards a GPP-winning upside, but they have a much better chance of doing it than those priced below them.
Value drivers (above $7k)
Suarez/Bowman are the most likely to pay off for tournaments, followed by Dillon and Newman, though I don’t like their chances near as much as the first two. My preferred play would be to mix/match McMurray, Suarez, and Bowman for this price range while sprinkling in the other two.
Studs (above $8k)
Finally, we arrive at the non-dominator studs. Blaney, Kurt, Elliott, and Almirola are mostly equal and can be used as a mix/match group with or without the chalky studs. You can use them sort of how I recommended using the dominators:
Lineup group A: Hamlin + mix/match studs
Lineup group B: Larson + mix/match studs
Lineup group C: Johnson + mix/match studs
Lineup group D: fade Hamlin/Larson/Johnson, mix/match studs (higher risk)
I don’t really recommend the fourth option (fading all three chalk plays), because not only is it very likely that at least one of them winds up in the winning lineup, but it’s also asking a lot for two of these stud pivots to both go off today. The odds say have exposure to all three chalky plays and mix/match a single GPP stud around them.
That’s a wrap!
That’s going to do it for today! Remember to take advantage of the chalk for cash today, and don’t be afraid to eat some of it in your tournaments as well. Don’t build lineups full of 5-6 GPP plays because it’s very unlikely that ALL of the chalk plays fail today, or that many GPP plays all pay off together. Outside of plate races, there’s always some amount of chalk in the winning lineups, so keep that in mind. Good luck today!!