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NASCAR Calming the Chaos 5/18/19 – All-Star Race at Charlotte

Hello again Army, and welcome to this week’s Calming the Chaos!  I missed you all last weekend, but I can’t miss the races when they come to my home track.  I’m back at it this weekend though, so let’s tackle this All-Star race together!

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.

Charlotte Motor Speedway

If you didn’t already know, the All-Star race will take place at Charlotte Motor Speedway.  Yes, this is the same track that will see the Roval later on this season, but we’ll be in the standard 1.5-mile layout this time.

Last year’s All-Star race saw some key differences that we won’t see this year, mainly the restrictor plates that we will not see this year.  Instead, we’ll see a new splitter, which may or may not have an effect on green lap passes.  Basically, instead of it looking like a plate race, I expect this one to play out more like what we saw at Kansas last weekend.

Lineup construction/correlation

We have a pretty limited field this week, some drastic salary drop-offs, and only 85 laps to go around.  Needless to say, things are going to be a bit different this week, but that’s okay!  The more things change, the more we can find an edge in tournaments.

This race will only see 85 laps, so place differential and finishing position will be of the utmost importance this week.  With so much firepower in the mid to mid/high range, I prefer balanced and value/stud heavy lineups.

Dominators

Because there are only 85 laps, our need for dominator points will be at an all-time low.  That’s not to say we have to completely ignore them, that just means we don’t want to go out of our way to try and soak up all of them, especially not from the expensive drivers.

Instead, I would go after one dominator (pure) at the absolute most, and take any lead laps from your other drivers as a bonus.  You can stack a pure dominator with the hybrids just fine here.

However, If you want to forgo the dominators and load up on the backend drivers instead, that’s certainly an option too.  Even if somebody leads 75+ laps here, getting caught in a late-race wreck and dropping from 1st to 15th will take them right out of the winning lineup.  Both approaches are viable, you’ll just have to decide which you want to go with.

Kyle Busch is the most likely to dominate, followed by Bowyer.  After that it’s Harvick/Truex (this is talking just the pure dominators, not hybrids).

For the hybrids, I think the most likely will be ElliottLoganoBlaney, then Almirola.  As for Keselowski, see the fade considerations section later in the article.

Studs

I love both of these guys (Jones and Johnson), and I think there’s a decent chance that one of them will be in the winning lineup.  I do like Jones just a little bit more, but both are worth having here, as they offer top-5 potential for a super-low price.

Remember how much I love value studs at normal tracks when they’re $6-$7k and could see a top-10 or top-5 finish?  These two are basically super value studs.

Value studs

Both of our value studs are squarely in play as well.  I like Newman just a tick more than Dillon, but both are definitely in play and have a decent chance of winding up in the winning lineup.

I would probably have just a little bit more exposure to Jones/Johnson, as they do have slightly higher ceilings, but these two are worth all the ownership you give them, and probably a little more.

Fade considerations

Let’s talk about Brad Keselowski for a little bit.  On one hand, he’s probably got the highest ceiling on the board, so if you just want the easiest “best picks, brah??” play of the day, it’s him.  HOWEVER, I think he makes a better fade candidate, so let me explain my reasoning;

For starters, consider what we see most weeks.  He qualifies somewhere decent, sometimes a little worse, then he tends to just hang around there for a while until he randomly shows up in the top-5 in the last 3/4 or 2/3 of the race.  He then goes on to grab some dominator points and finishes pretty high (or wins).  He’s always expensive and rarely qualifies so poorly to where he’s chalk, so he generally comes in at around 10% or so ownership.

This week, however, that all changes.  He’s starting 14th, which wouldn’t make him stand out too much at any other track, but with so few drivers, this is more like him starting 30th at a normal race.  He’s also pretty inexpensive, which will probably lead to him being fairly chalky.

OK, so just fade the chalk and hope for a wreck, right?

Well that’s part of it, but there’s more to it than that.  Remember what I said about him earlier; we see him hang around his starting point for a while, as he’s making his adjustments and coming up with a plan, then executes later on in the race.  He likes to be methodical and take the “wait, see, then attack” approach to races.

He won’t have that this weekend.  It’s basically go time from the beginning, and he won’t have time to really blossom like he does at other tracks when he has a couple of hours to figure everything out.  I could really see him hanging around the top-10 or top-15 mark for a lot of the race, then running out of time to really plan/make his move.  For all of these reasons, I think he’s a good fade candidate.

Now, like I said earlier, he does probably have the highest ceiling on the board, and he’s bound to be popular, so if you just want to eat the chalk here, that’s fine by me.  It’s certainly a risky fade, but with such a small field, we need to make some bold moves if we want to win, and I think this is a spot where we can do just that.

Everything I just said about him more or less applies to Martin Truex Jr as well.  He’ll be less popular, but shares the same risk either way.

Harvick is also a good fade candidate, as I don’t see him overtaking Kyle Busch to dominate this thing.  The only way he outscores Elliott is if he wrecks, and he’s a pretty reliable driver.  Even if Harvick does win, that’s still no guarantee that he’ll be in the winning lineup unless he can dominate for a while.  I don’t really like his chances of doing that here.  Yes, he looked great at Kansas (until that random tire issue), but remember that Kansas is one of the tracks we expect him to perform (at least, I do), sort of like Atlanta and Phoenix.  This isn’t really the place for him to take over the race.

Stacks

There are only really two stacks I’m interested in this week – Penske and Hendrick.

Now, after I just went on that rant about Keselowski, it shouldn’t be too surprising that I prefer Logano and Blaney as the stack here.  However, if you want to run a full stack with all three instead, you could certainly do that too.

The other one of course would be Elliott with Johnson, as I think their momentum will carry over into this weekend.

I don’t really like an SHR stack this weekend, as I’m not big on Bowyer or Harvick, but if you do play them, be sure to get Almirola too (though I like him much better by himself with drivers from other teams).

Closing thoughts

Like other risky/unpredictable tracks, I don’t recommend playing any cash games here.  Stick to GPP and/or play lightly.  Remember, there’s $1,000,000 on the line for the drivers, and they will try like hell to win it.  Unless a driver has mechanical issues or a penalty, they’ll likely all be on the lead lap by the end of this thing, which gives them all a shot at winning (aka more chaos).

Remember that we have that awesome dominator stacking feature in the DS now, which is perfect for races like this.  Get a little creative with it, as it’s a very useful tool that nobody else out there will have at their disposal.

Good luck, and I’ll see you all in Slack!