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NASCAR Calming the Chaos 3/10/19 – Phoenix / ISM

Hello again Army, and welcome to this week’s Calming the Chaos!  We get a break from the 1.5-mile speedways this week with a trip to Phoenix, a short flat track where we’ve had plenty of success at.  Let’s continue that trend today!

Before we begin, be sure to check out my driver list & tools suite, as this article will directly tie into it.

Phoenix / ISM Raceway

Like I said above, we get a short (1-mile) flat (slower, less banking) track this week, which changes how we look at a few specific drivers.  I went over them in my notes, but if you have any questions, ask away.

The other big change this week is that we get full horsepower cars with no aero ducts.  In other words, those in better equipment will fare better here than the lower/mid tier cars, so special consideration will be needed when you start looking at the cheaper guys.  See the value and punt sections below for more details – very important stuff!

Lineup construction/correlation

Dominators

Looking at the race calculatorwe see that we want 2 or 3 dominators on DraftKings and 1 or 2 dominators on FanDuel.  I always like to start at the lower end, so for cash games, I would lean 2 dominators on DraftKings and 1 dominator on FanDuel.  I’ll make this easy on you; for cash games this week, start your lineup(s) with Harvick and go from there.  If you don’t trust Blaney for cash, there are a few others that make good options (see notes).  If you’re doing multiple ladders, feel free to anchor one of them with Kyle Busch instead of Harvick as the primary dominator and go from there.

Studs

There aren’t many studs this week, but two of them are very strong (Aric/Bowyer), and two are good GPP pivots (Jones/Johnson).  There’s a lot of place differential to be had here, so be sure to grab at least one of them (or use Larson from the hybrid list).  Since we have a couple of good cheap value options this week, feel free to stuff in two studs/hybrids if you can (which is exactly what I will be doing).

Value studs

Happy Suarez day!  He makes a fantastic play this week and is too cheap for what he brings to the table here (especially starting 28th).  For cash games, I see him as being nearly as important as having Harvick, and he’s not hard at all to build around.  For GPP there are several decent pivots you could use, or you could even try stacking two value studs together.  Unless they get a or some other random mishap, they won’t have the same issues the cheaper drivers may encounter.  That’s the big thing to watch out for this week, so let’s focus more on how to handle them:

Value

This applies more to the punts below, but the value drivers can absolutely run into the same issue, so be smart about who you use down here this week!

Recall what I said last season about this track:

The same holds true this week, especially since we have full horsepower cars with no aero ducts.  Be careful with these cheaper drivers because they really need to be on their game to avoid landing in staggered formation hell.  For this reason alone, Ragan and McDowell stand out with their experience (and because they are underpriced).  I would definitely start with them for your cash games this week, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see one of them (or perhaps even both) in the winning lineup this week.

Aside from them, pretty much everybody else should be considered a GPP pivot, and I wouldn’t go crazy stacking a bunch of these guys.  More on that later.  The main takeaway here is to be careful with the cheap drivers this week!  I’m not saying don’t play them.  I’m saying don’t build lineups that are overly reliant on these guys really paying off, because most of them won’t get anywhere close to it (unless we get a massive pileup).

Punts

See above.  I’m not against outright fading most of these guys (with a few shots going to Tifft just in case he learns from his teammates and makes the most out of this weekend).  But as for everybody else (LaJoie on down), my expectations for them are very low this week.

Stacks

Stewart-Haas stack will likely be the most common this week (Harvick SuarezBowyer and/or Aric), and for good reason.  All of them are in great spots and you can mix & match them however you please.  Like I said above, definitely take at least the first two in cash games, and feel free to throw in a third (or even a fourth if you aren’t taking Larson for some reason).

A Penske stack is always in order (Blaney Logano Keselowski).  That will be an expensive stack, so I would reserve those for lineups where you aren’t taking Harvick/Kyle Busch (Keselowski will need to dominate with Logano snagging a few lead laps along the way).  This is a GPP-only stack, so don’t go this route for your cash games.

Joe Gibbs cars aren’t very stackable this week; Kyle Busch, Truex, and Denny will all eat into each other’s ceilings, so none of them can be stacked together.  However, you could do a two-driver stack using Jones as a stud and one of the other three as a dominator.

A CGR stack is very easy as Larson is a top play while Kurt Busch is not too far behind.  You can stack them together without any concern, as they can both pay off without leading a single lap.  They won’t be sneaky by any means, but be sure to have some exposure to them because they have a pretty good chance of going off today.

There’s not much to like about a Hendrick stack today, as they are mostly one-offs for GPP use.  If you go this route, start with Chase and sprinkle some Jimmie and Byron around him.  I’m not a fan of Bowman today, but if you want to take a wildcard shot somewhere, he’s your guy.

Finally, we have the Front Row guys.  McDowell and Ragan lead the way here and can be used individually or paired up.  Because the bottom-end is pretty scary today, I would recommend eating the chalk here and moving on.  It’s not like Daytona/Talladega where the cheap guys can hang around and luck their way to the front.  Staggered hell is a real thing here!

The third wheel is Tifft who has been a letdown so far this year, but I’d like to make a case for him based on his success here in Xfinity.  Granted it’s not a direct comparison, but there is some carryover, and if he can stick with his teammates he might just have himself a decent run today.  Don’t go overboard on him or anything, but feel free to sprinkle him around with one or the other two (McDowell/Ragan).  If you’re feeling really adventurous, you could even stack all three together (GPP only!)

Pivots

There’s a bunch of chalk today and some of it will be unavoidable.  I’d wager that we’ll see at least 3 or 4 chalky drivers in the winning lineup today, so don’t feel like you have to go overboard on the pivots today (especially down low).  I would look more towards pivoting a secondary dominator and/or value studs and go a little safer everywhere else.  And of course, get a few shares of different primary dominators too, in case Harvick/Kyle Busch somehow forget how to dominate here.

Closing thoughts

Not a lot here, just be sure to heed the warning about the super-cheap drivers and the issue of them getting caught in a staggered formation.  Rather than going top-heavy, I would lean more towards being balanced and taking advantage of the strong value studs/studs instead of trying to cram in a bunch of expensive dominators.  Good luck today, and see you all back in Slack!