Good morning Army, and welcome to this week’s NASCAR VIP breakdown! We head back to Pocono this week, which is one of my favorite tracks on the circuit. Since this is the second race here, please refer to the first Pocono article I did (right here) for a basic overview. Everything in there applies to today’s race, including the race calculator. Since we don’t need to go over all of that stuff again in here, we can get straight to the good stuff!
Chalk overload!
As most of you probably know, we have a VERY chalky race ahead of us. A lot of cars failed the post-qualifying inspection, which means that their qualifying times were disallowed. That would be significant at any race, let alone one with only 160 laps (very few dominator points).
For cash games, be sure to eat as much chalk as you can. Don’t get cute here! There is way too much chalk for it to all fail, and if you purposefully fade it in your cash games, you aren’t going to succeed.
Likewise, even for tournaments, we’re going to have to eat a fair amount of chalk. The good thing though is that it only takes one or two good GPP pivots to set yourself apart from the rest, so that’s where you’ll find your edge this week (small but bold pivots). Don’t make lineups with 4-6 risky GPP pivots all in the same lineup! That’s asking for way too much to go wrong and just isn’t necessary. You’re going to need some of this chalk to win today because not only are there a lot of chalky drivers with very high ceilings, there are also a lot with very low floors/ceilings that are starting ahead of them. A lot of them are unplayable today because realistically, they don’t have any real chance of staying ahead of all of the chalk. I’ll go over some viable GPP pivots in that section, but for now, let’s move on!
Dominators
As we saw on the race calc, there are only 160 laps today. That alone gives us a low demand for dominators, but then you add in the fact that we have so much chalk starting from the back, and the need drops even more. With that in mind, I would go for single dominator lineups today and take whatever extra dominator points from your studs as a bonus.
Cash games approach
Eat chalk, win cash games!
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.
We have a whopping 13 drivers that failed inspection and were moved to the back of the field. All of these have high floors and ceilings, and honestly, you could make entire lineups using just them. Races like these are nice because we don’t have to worry about finding the right dominator up front. We can simply load up on drivers from the back and win cash games using nothing but place differential and finishing position. This doesn’t happen very often, so take advantage of it while you can!
Chalky cash plays
Since there are so many, I’m just going to list them in their respective categories.
Cash dominators
We have several studs starting in the back that could all dominate today, but the most likely would be Harvick and Kyle B. I wouldn’t bother trying to pick one of the guys starting up front for cash game use (Suarez isn’t a cash safe dominator and Hamlin will need to dominate for a long time to match the floor/ceiling of these other guys).
Also, due to their salaries, I would probably opt to take only one or the other, but you could still stack both Harvick and Kyle B without much downside today if you really wanted to. I would just prefer to pay down for one of the other studs to have some more salary to play with.
Cash value drivers (under $7k)
Menard, Byron, and Kahne are your guys here. They’re all good options, though the first two have higher ceilings for cash ladders. If you want to hedge some lineups, I would use Menard/Byron in cash ladders and Kahne in basic double-ups, 50/50s, or head-to-heads.
Cash value drivers (above $7k)
Austin Dillon is the only option here. The others aren’t safe for cash game use.
Cash studs (above $8k)
Bowyer, Almirola, Blaney, Logano, Larson, and Johnson are your chalky cash game studs. Mix and match them as you please, as they all have top-10 potential. They can all be used together without worrying about lowering each other’s ceiling, so feel free to go nuts here!
Every track needs a mascot, right Tricky? “Right!”
Tournament approach
There may be a boatload of chalk today, but we can still find some places to pivot to try and win some tournaments. Remember, it only takes 1-2 good pivots to do that, so don’t go crazy fading all the chalk today!
Also remember that all of the drivers listed in the cash section are fine for tournaments as well, with the exceptions I noted. You’ll want/need exposure to the chalky drivers all over the place today!
Dominators
Since people will be focused on the back part of the field, paying for a dominator up front could pay off. Be careful here though, because any dominator you take from the front needs to dominate a very large portion of the race to pay off.
Truex is the obvious choice, followed by Brad K and Hamlin. Kurt is one of the best at Pocono and has shown he can dominate, so I really like him too (he’s probably my favorite pivot today). Suarez and Jones are longshots, as is Elliott.
Value drivers (under $7k)
Bowman makes an interesting (though very risky) pivot. If he can hold his top-10 starting position, he could find his way into the winning lineup at his salary. He’s yet to show any success here though, so be careful. Still, the whole idea of a GPP pivot is to find a guy nobody saw coming, and this is a great place to take a few carefully placed shots.
Wallace can be used here as well. He looks chalky, but I don’t really like him for cash today, so this is where I would get exposure to him.
Ragan is in a very tough spot, but if enough people shuffle around him, there’s a chance he could sneak his way into a top-15 and wind up in the winning lineup. Again, this is very risky, but there is a somewhat realistic chance of it happening (he finished 16th here in June).
Value drivers (above $7k)
Stenhouse makes another interesting GPP option and is my favorite in this price range. Newman would be next in line, followed by Kenseth (I would use the last two very sparingly, but it’s not entirely impossible for them to finish well and really pay off).
Studs (above $8k)
Brad K and Kurt make great options here. On FanDuel they can pay off with a strong finish and on DraftKings they have fast-lap potential (along with the strong finish).
Elliott and Jones are cheap enough to pay off on both sites, even if they don’t dominate. I don’t like them as much as the first two, but there’s a reasonable path to them being in the winning lineup. If you’re playing a bunch of lineups, I would definitely have some exposure to all four of these drivers.
However, be careful stacking them, especially Elliot and Jones. I would recommend surrounding them with chalkier plays instead, as it’s asking for a lot for two (or more) of them to all hit a home run today. I could see stacking Brad K and Kurt, but again, I would not go crazy with that pairing!
This section…
…has my favorite GPP pivots!
Dominator: Kurt
Value (under $7k): Bowman (big risk, big reward)
Value (over $7k): Stenhouse
Stud: Brad K
And that’s going to do it for this one. See you guys/gals in Slack!