Hello again Army, and welcome to this week’s Calming the Chaos! We’re back at Talladega this week, smack dab in the middle of the playoffs. Needless to say, this will be a wild one, so let’s see where we can find some edges!
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.
Talladega Superspeedway
They may not be “plate races” anymore, but it’s all the same. Look for nose-to-bumper racing for 188 laps, which means we can see half the field get knocked out at a moment’s notice. Given that, I do not recommend playing cash games here, nor do I really think that single entry GPP is the way to go either. Rather, quantity is king here, so spread out this time!
If you normally play $100 with 20-25 or so lineups, I’d rather see you play in the 150-max entry (and some other lower-dollar 20-max entries) to get as many lineups out there as possible.
I know the notes look a little lacking this week, but this is just not a race that we can accurately predict. I can’t tell you this guy or that guy is a great play because he’s going to avoid the wrecks and finish in the top-5. I’d be lying to you if I tried to say that. Rather, I put in the kind of ceiling we can expect from each driver, and I recommend getting more exposure to them than their lower-ceiling counterparts.
Playoff picture
Seeing that this is a wildcard race and we can’t accurately predict who will survive and who will get wiped out in one of the big wrecks, I’m going to skip this section this weekend. It’ll be more important next weekend at Kansas.
Lineup construction / correlation
So, what’s the strategy here? Well, if you don’t remember, we’re basically targeting drivers starting deeper in the field and hoping they survive the wrecks. Salary doesn’t mean much here, as the winning lineup could leave $15,000 on the table just as easily as it could leave $500. In other words, don’t feel like you have to spend everything they give you this week. Anything can and will happen here, so get creative!
Finishing position and place differential are king here, and one big wreck can quickly send low-tier drivers (that normally finish in the 30’s) way higher than they normally would, as high as a top-20, top-10, or even a top-5 finish or a victory. Those are the kind of drivers we want to land on this week.
So, how do we figure out who will survive? Unfortunately, we don’t. However, what we can do is figure who has the highest ceilings and go heavier on them. Basically, the idea here isn’t to try and figure out who will or won’t survive. Rather, we want to have lots of exposure to drivers that could pay off (with a high ceiling) should they survive, so we can put ourselves in the best position to take advantage of the random good/bad luck that will unfold!
Hybrids
Hamlin and the Busch brothers have the highest ceilings here, but like I hinted at in the notes, I don’t mind fading Kyle since he tends to find trouble here and he should carry a fair amount of ownership. Kurt is my favorite of the group, though Hamlin clearly has the highest ceiling since he’s starting dead last.
Truex and Harvick are decent pivots, as they still have some sort of a reasonable ceiling and shouldn’t see a ton of ownership. I would have equal ownership to them both.
Dominators
A good way to be different is to grab a dominator and hope they can lead a bunch of laps (like Blaney has done before) and also finish strongly. Obviously, since there are only 188 laps, we don’t want to go heavy here, but sprinkling around a dominator in your lineup pool is a good way to get exposure to drivers that could see a high ceiling with low ownership.
Chase has a good chance to do it, and the direct pivot to him would be Bowman (in the event that Chase has a bad start).
The Penske guys (Keselowski, Logano, and Blaney) are all worth a look here too, and I don’t mind taking two of them together over on FanDuel.
Stenhouse is the longshot here. He can be sprinkled around but I wouldn’t go overboard.
Finally, aside from the Penske drivers noted above, I don’t recommend trying to stack any of these guys. If you’re using one, only use one per lineup!
Studs
This isn’t a very exciting group, but you can sprinkle these three (Larson, Bowyer, and Jones) around as they won’t see much ownership. They’ll need a top-5 or so to have any shot of paying off, but it’s not impossible.
Value studs
DiBenedetto is easily the main target here. Cheap, starts deep, and pretty decent at avoiding the chaos.
Suarez and Austin are also in decent spots, and you can use them as pivots to DiBenedetto or stack them up. They don’t have quite as high of a ceiling, but they’re still plenty high to take down a tournament if they wind up in the top-5 (Austin is no stranger to doing that at these kinds of races).
Newman and Menard come next (Menard is actually pretty good here, so I guess I would say he’s the stronger option of the two). It’s a semi-longshot for them to be in the winning lineup, so I wouldn’t stack them together. Take one or the other.
Aric doesn’t have much going for him and is probably worth a fade this week. I guess you could sprinkle him around on FanDuel, but I don’t really see him paying off anywhere unless this race gets really stupid.
Value
It’s a 6-way tie between Hemric, Wallace, Preece, Gaughan, Chastain, and LaJoie. All of them have equally high ceilings, so I would probably try to have equal-ish exposure to all of them.
Ty is the best pivot to them, followed by Buescher, McDowell/Ragan, and finally Tifft (who is probably worth fading).
Punts
Lock & load!! This is where most of the highest-ceiling drivers are, so feel free to go crazy here. Get exposure to all of them, and don’t be afraid to stack a couple or even a few of them. One big wreck is all it takes to send the guy running 35th up to 15th, on his way to the winning lineup.
Stacks
I don’t mind a two-man Penske stack over on FanDuel, but not much else this week.
Pivots
Pivots are extremely important here, so be sure you’ve got your bases covered here. Go heavier on those with higher ceilings and work your way down with some exposure to the longshots.
Closing thoughts
Like I said earlier, this race is all about putting yourself in a position to take advantage of the good/bad luck that unfolds. If you want to win, you’ll need to get comfortable with an uncomfortable lineup. Get creative, get bold, and don’t get hung up on how much salary you have leftover. Good luck, and I’ll see you all in Slack!