Good morning Army, and welcome to this week’s Calming the Chaos! We’re on the west coast this week in California, at the 2-mile long Auto Club Speedway. There are a few points of interest to go over this weekend, and I think they will help guide us to the top again.
As always, if you haven’t already, be sure to check out my driver list & tools suite, as this article will directly tie into it.
Auto Club Speedway
The aero ducts make their return this week, in what many are calling the “first true test of the season” for the new rules package. As we’ve seen so far this season, this new package has made it more difficult for drivers to move up much after they enter the top-10, and I expect that to be the case again today. What does that mean for us? It means we need to be even more mindful of how we construct our lineups and be sure that we’re putting together drivers that aren’t going to eat into each other’s ceilings. But don’t worry, that’s what I’m here for!
There are some narratives at play as well that we’ll want to take into consideration. The biggest one is, of course, Kyle Busch’s quest to hit the 200-win mark. We know he blew his chances at the Xfinity race (and we know it’s on his mind, from what we could hear on the radio), but did you also know that this is the same track he got his first win at? All things considered, I expect him to be in full playoff mode today, and I think he’ll be gunning for the lead as soon as the green flag waves. I love an angry and/or motivated Kyle Busch, and that’s exactly what we have.
Jimmie Johnson hasn’t won in 63 races, and it’s been 50 for Kyle Larson, both of which are California natives. While I don’t expect them to win, I do expect them to bring their A-game since we only visit their home tracks once per year (Sonoma being the other one).
Lineup construction/correlation
There are only 200 laps at this race, which is the same that we saw at Daytona. This is very important for lineup construction, and not just for dominators. It’s also going to put more importance on finishing position and place differential since there will be fewer dominator points to go around.
Also, like last week, I’m not very fond of the super-punts here (see the punts section below for more info).
All things considered, I think that the mid to mid-high range drivers will be the most important. There aren’t many that I feel have a good chance of dominating, the studs are kind of weak, and the super-punts aren’t looking too good either. I think the play this week will be focusing on a smaller core on the higher/lower end, and using a lot of pivots in the mid to mid-high range.
Dominators
With all of that out of the way, we can turn our attention to the race calculator, where we see 1 to 2 dominators for DraftKings and 1 dominator on FanDuel. I think one dominator is the way to go in all formats on both sites, but feel free to squeeze in some two-dominator lineups on DraftKings for some GPP use.
Regardless of who you use, the important thing to note is to not stack dominators here. You can use a dominator with a dom/stud hybrid, but running two dominators (i.e. Kyle Busch and Kevin Harvick) in the same lineup isn’t going to work here. Even if they both lead 75+ laps, the rest of those kinds of lineups will be full of low scoring super-punts, and you’ll be outscored by more balanced lineups who take advantage of the strong mid-range we have this week.
Studs
There aren’t many studs to choose from this week, and they aren’t in the best of spots, but they could still be worth sprinkling around a little in GPP. The issue with most of them is their starting position, finishing position capability, and salary.
For example, Chase starts 8th and could see a 5th place finish or so, but costs $8,800 / $10,600. For not much more, Truex and Kurt Busch could both finish 5th place but also bring a bunch of place differential along the way. On the other hand, you could pay down for Erik Jones or Daniel Suarez and again have a driver with a higher ceiling, this time for less salary.
They’re in a bit of a rough spot this week, and while I wouldn’t avoid them completely, I wouldn’t go heavy on them either. The exception to this issue is Jimmie Johnson, who is priced nicely at $7,800 / $8,700. I’m not saying to go heavy on him either, but I would probably have a little more exposure to him than the other three (GPP only).
The dom/stud hybrids, on the other hand, are all in very good spots and I would make sure to have exposure to all four of them this weekend. There’s a very good chance that at least one of them winds up in the winning lineup, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see two of them make it in.
Value studs
There are several strong GPP plays in this range, and it’s one where I think a tournament will be won. I think that all eight of them are worth having in your pool, rotated around your dominators and studs and/or dom/stud hybrids.
I would stick to one to two of them per lineup, and maybe a third if you want to get really unique in a single entry or something. I don’t think that all of them will go and have the kind of race we want out of them, but I think there’s a really good chance that at least one or two of them do.
Value
While not quite as strong as the value studs, there are still some good choices in here (as well as some fade considerations). I would use them the same as you would the value studs, sticking to one or two of them per lineup.
Punts
Like I mentioned earlier, I’m not a big fan of these guys this week. Last week, the issue was that they fell into “staggered formation hell” as they continued to lose laps. This week’s issue is that outside of the first part of restarts, this is a pretty safe track, so there probably won’t be a ton of cautions for the slower cars to get free passes. Since it is a 2-mile long track, those cars simply won’t be able to keep up, which will make moving up very difficult for them unless there’s a bunch of chaos on the restarts. I don’t think the aero ducts will make much of a difference in this regard (don’t expect them to run nose-to-bumper like a plate race).
All things considered (only 200 laps so less importance on dominators, the mid to mid-high range being so strong, and the punts being so risky), I don’t think we need to dumpster dive this weekend to win. Everything is pointing towards balanced and value/stud heavy lineups this week.
Stacks
We have several strong stack candidates this week, so let’s get right into them!
The first is a JGR stack; Kyle Busch, Martin Truex Jr, and Erik Jones can all be used together and represent a very strong core. Denny Hamlin can be swapped in for Busch if you’d like, but I don’t recommend pairing Hamlin and Busch together. This stack with Busch can be used in all formats, while the Hamlin version would be for GPP.
Next up is a CGR stack with Kyle Larson and Kurt Busch. You could use them as studs paired up with somebody else as a dominator, or you could use one (or both) of them as a dominator if you wanted to pivot away from the front-runners. Either way is fine, but I would put more emphasis on using them paired together as studs.
A SHR stack is also in play (though not as strong as the others), with Harvick, Bowyer, and Suarez representing the core. Almirola could be used in Harvick’s place, but I think he’s better off as a fade this week. Feel free to drop Bowyer as well, since he’s not as strong of a play as some of the others (swapping him out for the CGR guys would be a solid choice).
A Penske stack is interesting, as they tend to do well at tracks where they can work together, and this race could turn into something like that with the new rules package. Keselowski, Logano, and Blaney can all be used together.
Hendrick makes an interesting stack as well, and they can all be used together if desired. The weak link here would be Chase this week, so using just Jimmie, Bowman, and Byron is perfectly fine. I like any combination of them as they will probably try and work together as much as possible. I don’t think they’ll be gunning for a win, but they would love to grab a handful of top-10s for their stable (all four of them are capable of doing that this week).
Pivots
This race will be all about the pivots! I would try to focus more on pivoting in the mid to mid-high range (dom/studs hybrids, value studs, and value), and using a smaller core for your dominators. I don’t think there are many (if any) drivers that can take the lead away from Kyle Busch, Martin Truex Jr, Kevin Harvick, or Kyle Larson this weekend, so I think it would be better to focus elsewhere.
Closing thoughts
Not much else to say here, I tried to touch on everything I could think of for this weekend. Adapting to different scenarios is what this is all about, and I hope I’ve armed you guys with enough ideas to make some great lineups for the puzzle at hand. Good luck today, and see you all in Slack!