Good morning Army, and welcome to this week’s Calming the Chaos! We’re down to just one race left before the season finale, and oh boy are there some interesting scenarios at play here. The track might be small, but there shouldn’t be any shortage of drama, and perhaps some mayhem, before it’s all over.
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.
Phoenix / ISM Raceway
Before we begin – I’ve been wanting to change up this article for a little while now, and since there are only two races left on the season, I thought this would be a good time to do it. The idea is to help put you guys on the best drivers quicker/easier, depending on the type of contests you’re doing, so I want to focus more on that and come across as being a little more decisive. Let me know what you guys/gals think of this new format, and if it helps you win some money today!
Now, with that out of the way, let’s talk about Phoenix. We’ve got ourselves a small (1 mile long) flat track, which is a bit different than most tracks we’ve seen since the middle of the summer, especially the 1.5-mile tracks like Texas. While there are some drivers that this benefits (i.e. Hamlin is a known threat at flat tracks), there’s an entire group of drivers that this really hurts – the punts. That’s probably the most important thing to discuss here, so let’s get to that now.
If you remember, this is a track where I recommend outright fading all of the punts due to them getting stuck in what I called “staggered formation hell.” Basically, any sort of medium/long green flag run will quickly start putting them numerous laps down, and when the caution comes out, they start getting locked down in a staggered formation. You’ll have a handful of lucky drivers at -1 lap, but then you’ll get a few at -2, a few at -3, a few at -4, and so on. Once a driver is stuck anywhere beyond being one lap down (which will be a lot of them), they’re basically stuck there for the day unless there’s a huge wreck that wipes out half the field (which isn’t really something that happens here).
Long story short, the punts (and anybody else who has any sort of mishaps like a green flag penalty or a blown tire) will get stuck deep in the field with virtually no chance of moving up, making it nigh impossible for them to return any sort of value. My solution? Fade all of the punts this week!
Playoff picture
As I eluded to earlier, this race has some very important playoff concerns, especially with it being the last race of the season before the championship race. Let’s start at the bottom and work our way up.
Elliott is in a must-win situation. This is certainly a track where he could do that, and I think his momentum from the road courses will help him here. He’s dominated here in the past, so it won’t take a fluke overtime finish for him to pull it off. Basically, feel free to use him as a dominator today, though I’d be careful pairing him up with any mid/late-race dominators (i.e. Truex, Hamlin, etc). More on that later!
Next up is the group of Hamlin, Blaney, and Larson. They’re in the same situation here; a win advances them to the championship race, or they could make it on points if Kyle Busch or Logano have early troubles and finish in the 30s somewhere. Only a few points separate these three, so they’ll need to outpace one another, which gives them a few bumps in terms of dominator potential (they NEED to run up front all day, collecting stage points as they go, and no position rewards you more than being in first). I would use them as mid/late-race dominator options, which makes them a viable option to stack with either Kyle Busch or Logano (again, more on this later).
Finally, Kyle Busch and Logano are at the top, but only by around 20 points or so. That’s a decent cushion, but an early exit with a near last-place finish will eliminate them from the playoffs, so they too will need to stay up front and collect as many points as possible. If one of the previously mentioned drivers wins today, only one of these two will advance, so look for them to treat every lap like it’s the final lap. They’ll need to outrun each other and collect more stage points in the event that happens, so I expect the bulk of the laps to be led by one of these two today.
Drivers
I told you this would be a little different! Let’s first touch on the drivers, then we’ll get to how to use them in specific contests.
Dominators
With 312 laps to go around, we’ll want 1 or 2 dominators in all formats. For cash games, I would focus on using Kyle Busch as your primary dominator, and if you want to pair him up with either Harvick or Blaney, you can do that. Otherwise, I would save the pivots (Hamlin, Truex, Larson, etc) for GPP. Speaking of GPP, feel free to run some solo-dominator lineups out there. If you do that, I would look at Kyle Busch, Logano, Hamlin, Truex, and Larson as the most likely to do that.
Your early race dominators are Kyle Busch and Logano. I don’t really see them splitting lead laps, as I think it will be one or the other (or somebody else), so I probably wouldn’t go crazy stacking these two.
Your mid/late-race dominators are Hamlin, Truex, Blaney, Larson, and Elliott. I like them best paired with Kyle Busch or Logano, but stacking them isn’t off-limits, as we could see two of these drivers grab around 100 lead laps each. Don’t get carried away, but don’t feel like you have to force them apart, either. The exception would be Hamlin, Truex and Larson, as they’re more likely to lead 150-200+ laps if they get the lead and hold it. Basically, I’m saying guys like Hamlin and Blaney are fine to stack, but I wouldn’t stack Hamlin/Truex/Larson.
I don’t see Harvick dominating today, as he doesn’t need to, so I don’t really like for him to pay off in GPP. He’s still fine for cash if you can afford him with Kyle Busch, but I think fading him in GPP is the way to go today.
Studs
The mid-range is pretty strong this week, and after you figure out your dominators, I would focus on these guys.
Aric, Byron, and Johnson are all strong plays, and you can’t really go wrong with them in cash games. See the section below for more specifics for cash games, but for GPP, just be sure to have a healthy chunk of exposure to all three of them today (mix and match them however you see fit, they can be stacked without any issue). In fact, I don’t mind just fading Kurt/Jones/Bowman from this group and focusing only on Aric/Byron/Johnson if you’re looking for a way to trim some fat.
Value studs
Newman and Austin are the strong options with our next group, and Stenhouse has a ceiling that is right up there with both of them. For cash games I would look at the first two (more on that to come), and be sure to have a good chunk of shares of Stenhouse in GPP to go along with them.
I’m not in love with their pivots (Menard, DiBenedetto, Suarez, and Buescher), and I don’t mind just fading them on DraftKings (with some exposure on FanDuel), as they’ll have a very hard time outscoring the first three drivers mentioned on DK.
Value
It’s all about Ty Dillon here, and he’s a “plug him in and move on” type of a play in all formats today. Ragan and Hemric are right up there with him, and I’d be sure to get a lot of exposure to them in GPP to go with Ty. You can also use those two in cash games, but absolutely have Ty first. More on this later.
Preece, Wallace, Chastain, and then McDowell are the GPP pivots. Preece is well ahead of the other three, and I would have him just a notch or two below Ragan/Hemric.
I would fade LaJoie along with the punts.
Punts
Fade ’em all!
Lineup construction / correlation
I like a balanced lineup in all formats, and I don’t mind attacking the mid-range more with some value/stud heavy lineups in GPP. I would avoid stars & scrubs here for the reasons I mentioned earlier (I don’t want no scrubs!)
Cash games
For all cash games, I would start with Kyle Busch and Ty Dillon. After that, decide if you’re building for basic cash games or for a ladder.
Basic cash games
We don’t need a super high ceiling here, so I would probably look to guys like Harvick and Austin to continue these lineups. It’s not that they can’t score well, it’s more than they’ll likely be popular and their floors are high enough that I am fine just defaulting here for basic games (H2H, 50/50s, etc). Newman is also a good way to go here instead of Austin if you want his top-15 upside (he’s more than safe enough to use here).
From there, grab another value driver (Ragan or Hemric), then a stud (Aric, Byron, or Johnson).
Ladders
For ladders, we need some upside, so I’d probably move off of Harvick here and go for Blaney instead. I don’t hate the idea of using Hamlin or Truex here either, but Blaney is cheaper and offers some of the same upside that they do.
I would move off of Austin here and favor Newman for his upside. You can take them both if you want, but either way, get some Newman.
The same value/studs are in play here, but you can add Stenhouse to the mix as well. We don’t need him for our basic cash games, but I love him for a ladder if you’re including some small field GPPs. The same can be said for Preece, but I do like the Stenhouse pivot more.
Tournaments
GPP building can be virtually the same as cash games this week, as we want to avoid the punts no matter what, but the bigger focus will be on getting those pivots in.
Multi-entry
As I mentioned earlier with the dominators, there are some we want to avoid stacking, so it’s not a bad idea to use the dominator stacking feature to make that happen. To recap, the primary early options are Kyle Busch and Logano. Your mid/late-race options are Hamlin, Truex, Blaney, Larson, and Elliott.
Stacks to avoid or go light on: Busch + Logano and any two of Hamlin/Truex/Larson.
Stacks to consider: Busch or Logano + one of Hamlin, Truex, Blaney, Larson, or Elliott
Solo dominator options: Busch, Logano, Hamlin, Truex, or Larson
The other way to use the stacking feature would be to mark all of the strong plays & pivots in the low/mid/high-range (Aric, Byron, Johnson, Newman, Austin, Stenhouse, Ty, Hemric, and Ragan) and forcing in at least two of them into every lineup (you’ll need to take manual control over your dominators if you go this route).
Single entry
Honestly, you could probably just take your cash/ladder lineup and make a pivot or two and call it good here. Grab somebody like Blaney, Stenhouse, Hemric, or Preece to go with your chalkier options to help get a little different. Another idea would be to run a solo dominator lineup and go extra heavy on the value/studs and avoid using any high-dollar drivers here. Also, don’t be afraid to leave some salary on the table to help get a little different (this goes for MME too). I’d probably say $800-$1000 max leftover is reasonable this week.
Closing thoughts
I hope you all enjoyed this different format, and please, leave some feedback so I know if it helps or not. Mind those pivots, fade the punts, and let’s win some money today. Good luck, and I’ll see you all in Slack!