Hello again Army, and welcome to this week’s Calming the Chaos! We’re back at it at Pocono Raceway again this week,
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.
Pocono Raceway
Lineup construction/correlation
Since we’ve already gone over all of this, I’ll just refer everyone to the previous article I put out about Pocono earlier this summer. We have the same 160-lap race, so construction and all of the other concerns remain the same here. Super-punts and other drivers in low-tier/questionable cars are bad…finishing position and place differential are good!
Remember, qualifying is different this time around, so don’t make picks based on the driver information from that race. It’s just to reference construction/correlation.
Hybrids
As usual, these guys represent some of the best bang and bang-for-the-buck on the entire slate, so feel free to start some lineups with one or more of them.
Larson and Elliott both will start deep in the field, and while it was because of some practice woes, I’m not overly worried about them. They both know this track very well and I expect them to be on their game when it’s go time. Of course, if you think their troubles continue to the race, you could fade them for some ownership leverage since they’re bound to be popular.
Regardless of what you do with them, be sure to get some exposure to all of the pivots here in GPP, especially if you’re not using them in cash – Keselowski, Blaney, and Bowyer are the next best options, followed by Bowman. Keselowski has the most dominator potential. Speaking of which…
Dominators
Going by the race calculator, we see that we want one dominator in all formats. It’s riskier, but I don’t mind some two dominator lineups in GPP if you want to go that route (more on that in just a bit).
Harvick and Kyle Busch are the main dominator threats here. While I do prefer taking one or the other, there are enough value/value stud plays to make it work without having to go dumpster diving (i.e. the yucky punts), so yeah…I don’t mind making a few lineups stacking them both. However, they will both need to stay up front for the entire race, so don’t go overboard here.
On that note, I don’t mind stacking Harvick with Keselowski either, for the same reasons above. Same goes for Logano with Keselowski or Kyle Busch.
Those are the main dominator stacks I would use if you’re going for two dominators. Otherwise, I would stick to one dominator. I’d probably go about 60-75% with a single dominator, and the rest with none or two.
Studs
The studs are pretty weak again this week, but you can sprinkle them around a little if you want (I’d avoid stacking them though). Due to pricing, I’d probably rank them in this order: Johnson, Kurt, then Jones.
Value studs
It’s not a 1.5-mile track so I won’t go overboard here, but hey hey…it’s Chris Buescher time!!
Newman and Menard are also in play here and can be used in cash and GPP alike. My initial cash lineup runs on DraftKings kept landing on Menard, and I don’t mind it. Anyway, if you don’t get some of these guys in cash, definitely get them in GPP.
Stenhouse, Suarez, and Byron are the pivots here. Use them like the studs (sprinkle them around but avoid stacking them).
Value
Chastain and Ty are the all-purpose cash plays here. I do give the nod to Chastain (especially since he’s cheaper), but I don’t mind Ty if you land on him at the end of a lineup. For GPP I like Chastain more than Ty, but I like the pivots even more.
For GPP, I like the pivots in this order: Hemric, Preece, Tifft – then DiBenedetto – then Ragan/McDowell/Wallace. I really like the first three and recommend having a decent chunk of exposure to them.
UPDATE – Wallace is changing his engine (well, his crew is…you get the point!), which will cause him to start at the rear (will still be scored from his original qualifying position). This more or less takes me off of him completely, as he was already sketchy before this news. I don’t see him being able to pay off now as I don’t see him being able to move up quickly/efficiently enough to finish where we would need him to.
Punts
Like I mentioned earlier, I do not like the super-punts here and I will be fading them all. There’s a time and a place for them, and it’s not at Pocono Raceway.
Stacks
Like I mentioned in the notes, it’s mostly Penske and Hendrick that I’m interested in for stacking this week. Check the link for more info on them. Otherwise, this isn’t really a race where I could see other teams doing much to really put themselves ahead of the pack (or they didn’t quality in spots where I think they could take advantage of it).
Pivots
As is the theme of the article, this week is pivot’s galore. I think the best places to go are the value drivers and dominators, followed by the value studs, then lastly the studs.
Outside of the random chaos, this looks to be a fairly straight-forward race, so if you feel like you’re narrowing down your driver pool a bit more than normal, it’s fine this week. We were just at this track not too long ago, so we have a pretty good idea of how things are likely to shake out, so take advantage of it!
Closing thoughts
We have about half as many laps this week as we did last week, so don’t forget to change your approach here. If you haven’t already, visit the previous Pocono article to get up to speed with the little quirks we have to deal with here. This one plays more like a plate race without the multi-car crashes, so build accordingly. Good luck, and I’ll see you all in Slack!