Greetings Army, and welcome to this week’s Calming the Chaos! We’re back at a short track this weekend, Bristol being the variety this time around. Qualifying turned out pretty nicely, and there are a ton of great options to talk about. We had a lot of winners with the Xfinity race, so let’s keep that going all weekend!
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.
Bristol Motor Speedway
We have 500 laps again this week, which will change our approach a little bit compared to last week. There are also several drivers that will probably be key this weekend, where they may go under-utilized most other weeks (properly correlating them will be very important as well). Finally, there are a ton of great pivot options this weekend, so be sure to pay close attention to the various dominators, value studs, and value drivers this week, as they will be of very high importance. Enough chit chat, let’s get to it!
Lineup construction/correlation
The $5,550 to $7,800 price range (on DraftKings) is absolutely loaded this weekend, and I think that’s where we can have a huge advantage over the field. Because of this, I’m recommending value/stud heavy or stars & scrubs lineups for all formats. I think there is enough value in that price range that we could avoid the super-punts for the most part. Several of the value studs have every bit as high of a ceiling as several of the higher-priced guys this weekend, so don’t feel like you HAVE to go top/bottom heavy. Put that mid-range to use!
Dominators
We saw a dominant solo performance at Martinsville a couple of weeks ago, but I don’t think that will be the case here at Bristol. If you recall, Logano had a pretty rough start and after Brad K gave him the boot a few laps in, nobody had anything that could keep up with him. With the way the field is set this week, however, I don’t think we’ll see something like that happen again. I think we’ll have one early dominator that will lead most of stage 1, one mid-late dominator that everybody is trying to catch up to, and a few random drivers that take the leftovers during pit cycles and/or cautions.
With that in mind, I would aim for two dominators in all formats on both sites. As usual, the dominator/stud hybrids can be used freely with whoever you want, but be careful with how you use the other ones. I would recommend splitting them into two groups (names are in no particular order):
Group 1 – Chase, Blaney, and Hamlin
Group 2 – Logano, Bowyer, Larson, Almirola, and all dominator/stud hybrids
I say this because I think it’s pretty likely that one of the group 1 dominators will lead most of the first stage, and at that point, one of the others will take over for the second stage. That’s where the group 2 dominators or the dominator/stud hybrids would come into play.
Another option would be building around the idea that one of those front-runners leads the first stage, but then has some issues later (a crash, blown engine, etc), which would basically wipe those dominator points out. If you go that route, I would look at pairing up two of the group 2 dominators.
I mentioned in my notes to check in here for more discussion on what to do with Larson. Basically, it’s what I just stated above. Be smart about how you use him. We know he won’t lead the early laps since he’ll be stuck in traffic, but if he can gain some position during the pit stops, he could make his way up in the middle or late stages of the race, which would give him time to lead a large portion at that point. In other words, it would be best to use him with one of the front-runners to get dominator points from both the beginning and later stages of the race. Pairing him up with others in the back may limit your ceiling since they will all be fighting for those same lead laps later on. The early laps, however, will probably belong to one of the front-runners.
Studs
Once again it’s just Johnson here, and there’s not much more to say here than what I put in my notes. Sprinkle him around as a pivot but don’t get carried away.
Value studs
Finally, the value studs! If you’ve played around with the Domination Station already, you know that it’s very high on both Stenhouse and Suarez. There’s a very good reason for that; they are both excellent plays this weekend and you should absolutely have exposure to both of them. However, there are a bunch of other strong options in this price range, and I highly recommend hammering them all; Austin, Bowman, Newman, Jones, and Menard (in that order). Remember that these guys are pretty good here, and they offer similar ceilings to some drivers that are several thousand dollars more expensive than they are.
I’m not very big on Byron this week, but you could sprinkle him around like you would Johnson.
I think that at least one of these guys are more or less guaranteed to be in the winning lineup, and I think there’s a very good chance that two of them show up. Again, I would hammer the hell out of this group, as every single one of them has a realistic path of being in the winning lineup. I wouldn’t be opposed to having 100% exposure to them (that means that you have at least one of these guys in every lineup), or really close to it.
Value
Like the value studs, the regular value drivers offer a bunch of upside this weekend too. Ragan, Ty, DiBenedetto, and Bubba are my favorite three, while Buescher, Tifft, and Preece are worth shuffling around too (probably not as much as the other three, but more than just darts).
I’m not huge on Chastain or McDowell having enough of a ceiling to really pay off, but if the race gets a little wild and they survive some wrecks, they could sneak into the winning lineup that way. They’re worth sprinkling around for that reason alone, but I wouldn’t go crazy on them either. Probably similar exposure to that of Johnson/Byron.
The beauty of this group of drivers is that they’re cheap enough to avoid the super-punts, who more or less require a bunch of chaos to pay off. All of these drivers are capable of strong finishes on their own, and most of the drivers below them can’t say that. There is one I like though, so let’s talk about him next.
Punts
There aren’t many times where I’ll say to target Cassill, but this is one of them. His car isn’t spectacular by any means, but this is the sort of race where his driving skill can outshine his sub-par equipment. Of the punts, I think he has by far the best chance of holding his position and moving up later on, so if you need to go this low, I would look at him. The others will need some chaos to score well, where Cassill can get a decent score without it.
Pivots
This race has a ton of great pivot options, so be sure to take advantage of them! I much prefer MME over single entry this week, but that’s not to say that single entry isn’t viable. It definitely is, but you’ll want to grab one of those pivots instead of just using all of the easy plays. Guys like Jones, Blaney, Ragan, or the Dillons should be options you consider to go along with the chalky guys like Busch/Busch to help set you apart. Remember that it only takes one or two bold pivots to give yourself that edge!
Closing thoughts
Good luck, and I’ll see you all in Slack!