Hello again Army, and welcome to this week’s Calming the Chaos! We kick off the Monster Energy playoffs this weekend, so everything is going to change now and for the remainder of the season. We’ll start with this trip to Las Vegas, a 1.5-mile track that brings some important thoughts to consider as we approach the green flag. Not to worry, we’ll go over them here!
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. If you have any questions, reach out to me in Slack at #nillys-garage-nas-mlb and I’ll be happy to help however I can.
PLEASE NOTE – I will be driving down to Texas this weekend, and depending on what time we head out, I may or may not be able to update my notes after inspection, and I may or may not be available in Slack. In any event, please keep an eye on #nascar-news-and-notes to get the latest info regarding inspection!
Richmond Raceway
We head back to the short track world this week, with a visit to Richmond’s 3/4 mile offering. Since this will be the second race here this year, we have a pretty decent idea of what to expect out of a number of drivers, as well as some who could have a high ceiling performance, so there are plenty of great targets/pivots to look at this week.
Playoff picture
The biggest news here is that Truex has punched his ticket to the second round, but I don’t expect him to relent one bit. Momentum is huge at this level, and I would not be the least bit surprised to see him out here treating this like a do-or-die race. Remember, it’s not only about punching a ticket for yourself, it’s also about creating difficult scenarios for your competition. He would love nothing more than to have the other high-caliber drivers all stressing over the Roval next week with their playoff hopes up in the air for whoever can survive it. In other words, don’t skip over Truex this week thinking he’s going to go for a layup. He’s going for another dunk!
As for the rest of the field, the studs don’t have much to worry about (Kyle Busch, Harvick, etc), but there’s a lot of questions for the bottom half of the group. Let’s take a look at them now:
As you can see, there aren’t that many points that separate these guys, and not a single one of them (well, except maybe Blaney) want to go to the Roval next week knowing that they need a strong finish to make it to the next round. Keep a close eye on them, and keep them in mind as we navigate the field in this week’s breakdown (see the notes I’ve already put up, too).
Lineup construction / correlation
We get 400 laps here, so based on the race calc, we’re looking at 2 to 3 dominators on DraftKings and 1 to 2 of them on FanDuel. For cash games, I would lean towards using 2 on both sites, and for GPP on DraftKings we can try some lineups with 3 (or even 1, like Keselowski or Harvick). For lineups using 3, I would probably limit myself to 2 front-runners and using a hybrid for the last one.
Hybrids
Logano is the prize of this week’s qualifying run and should be the first driver we use for cash games. He also has a high chance (perhaps the highest on the slate) of being in the perfect lineup, so I probably wouldn’t try matching the field on him. Either go very heavy or straight up fade him and hope he busts…the choice is yours!
After that, it’s Larson followed by Jones for the GPP options. I would have a fair bit more exposure to Larson between these two.
Dominators
Keselowski has the pole and looks to be the more likely one to dominate the early race. He’s the primary cash option if you’re using a front-runner, which we should be since there are so many laps to go around. I expect to see him lead 50-75 laps on his way to a top-10 finish, giving him a floor of around 60 DKFP and a 100+ DKFP ceiling should he hold the lead for longer than expected (don’t forget, he did exactly that at Martinsville when he scored 199 DKFP).
Truex, as I mentioned earlier, is also a big threat, and he’s in a position where we can go to him for cash game use as well. I don’t mind stacking these two for cash game use.
After that, our GPP pivots are Kyle Busch, Harvick, Hamlin/Bowyer, then Kurt/Elliott…in that order.
Studs
Newman stands out once again this week, with Byron hot on his trails. I like both of them for cash games and love them both for GPP use. I think both of them have a high chance of a top-15 finish, and they could both see a top-10. As we saw earlier, they sort of need a top-10 finish if they want to go to the Roval without stressing out too much about it, so I expect them to be at their best here. They are easily the top two plays in this price range.
After that, it’s Bowman/Johnson….and then Almirola (who I don’t mind just fading). I put Bowman first due to him starting deeper in the field, but I actually like Johnson‘s chances of a stronger finish better. They make decent plays on DraftKings but I think they could really shine on FanDuel with the kind of finish they want/need.
Value studs
Menard is my guy here and is one of my favorite plays on the entire board. I expect him to perform and grab at least a top-15, possibly another top-10 here (remember, he did it in April). Austin is up next, and even though his 2019 season has really stunk, this is one of his last best chances to make something out of it. He has about the same ceiling that Menard does, but might see less ownership due to starting position and how cruddy his year has been.
After that, we’re looking at Stenhouse (risky, but has a high ceiling), Buescher (not exactly risky, but a bit of an unknown), DiBenedetto, and finally Suarez.
I do think DiBenedetto is the most interesting of the bunch, but like Johnson, he might be better suited over on FanDuel this week.
Value
Ty is the guy to go to in cash games this week, and his ceiling is plenty strong for GPP use as well. This is one of those tracks where he’s a very strong option, and the sites were probably too busy with NFL to price him up for the occasion.
Hemric and Preece are up next as the main GPP options (they can be used with or without Ty), and they’re virtually equal plays this week. Get exposure to both of them, as they both have a reasonable chance of being in the winning lineup.
After that, we’re looking at LaJoie/Tifft/Wallace, then Chastain/Ragan, and we should probably be fading McDowell.
Punts
Not much to say here, except that I really like Cassill this week and I think he’s got the best chance of all the punts (and even some of the value drivers) of being in the winning lineup. Not only has he seemed to have found a way to get more out of his #00, remember that pure speed isn’t the biggest factor here, and his skill (and yes, he’s a very talented driver…he just keeps finding his way in low-tier rides) can keep him up higher than where he could be otherwise.
After that, I guess I would say….Yeley, Houff, and then the other scrubs. I don’t really like anybody below Cassill this week and I don’t think we need them.
Stacks
I like a mini-Penske stack with Logano and Keselowski….but that’s about it for this week. The rest aren’t really in a spot to go heavy on team stacks.
Pivots
We have lots of great pivots this week, so be sure to utilize them! I would first focus on the dominators and value drivers, as I think that’s the place to win, but after that, we can look at the hybrids, value/studs, and then punts. I don’t love the pivots in those four groups, but there are still some decent ones to look at.
Closing thoughts
Mind the playoff narratives, utilize the data we have from April, remember that we have 400 laps this week instead of 267, take advantage of the mispricing, play within your budget, and let’s go win some money!!