Hello again Army, and welcome to another midweek Calming the Chaos! We head to Martinsville for another short track race, and I suspect it’ll be every bit as exciting as what we got out of Bristol. Better yet, we’ll be running under the lights, and for my money, it doesn’t get any better than that. Anyway, let’s dig into to this race, shall we?
As always, be sure to check out my driver list & tools suite and the coach’s cheat sheet. 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.
Martinsville Speedway
Ah, the paperclip. Another short track, but this one is a little bit different than Bristol. You see, Martinsville is much flatter, which means we’ll see a little bit lower speeds and possibly less chaos during the bulk of the race. That could very well mean longer green flag runs and fewer lead changes, something to consider as you’re building lineups (more on that in the next section).
This also means that certain drivers, that are notable at short and/or flat tracks, are in play here. Don’t worry, we’ll get to them, but just remember that this is one of those times to jump on them, so don’t forget!
Oct 27, 2018; Martinsville, VA, USA; NASCAR Cup Series driver Joey Logano (22) during the First Data 500 at Martinsville Speedway. Mandatory Credit: Peter Casey-USA TODAY Sports
It’s similar, but different
Although the race calc calls for 2-3 dominators over on DraftKings, I would lean more towards going with two here…on both sites, really. As I mentioned earlier, we’re more likely to see a calmer race than what we got from Bristol, which means that an established dominator is more likely to sit up front for a longer period of time. This might also hurt the scrubs/punts a bit more than expected, since they may lose more laps quicker than they would have otherwise, and they won’t have many chances to regain them (also if it plays out safer than the Bristol race, they won’t artificially gain a bunch of spots with multiple crashes).
Basically, it may be better to approach this race with a more balanced approach than going stars & scrubs like we would assume with a 500-lap race. That might also help set you apart since people will be trying to stuff in all the dominators they can to grab as many of those lead laps as possible.
The Field
Dominators
This has been a strong track for the Penske cars, and all three of them start near the front. On the pole we have Blaney, with Logano right behind him, and Keselowski not too far behind. All three of them are a threat to lead 100+ lead laps here, and Logano/Keselowski could put up a solo performance. Even though they’re not on the pole, I’d probably put them a tick above Blaney in GPP for their upside, but for cash games I would toss in Blaney as your primary dominator for his solid floor/ceiling combo.
Right up there with them are Hamlin, Bowyer, Truex, Elliott, and Kyle Busch, and I would put them roughly in that order. These guys are all threats to lead 100+ laps, and I expect the majority of all of the lead laps to be soaked up by these five and the three mentioned earlier. Fortunately, there are 500 laps to go around, so we can stack any of these drivers without worrying about the whole early/mid/late race issues we have at other tracks (this goes for the three Penske drivers, too).
Studs / value studs
Johnson finds himself at the top of the DraftKings salary pool again, and even though he doesn’t have much dominator upside, he could still see 60-70 DKFP with a top-5 finish and a handful of fast laps. That’s fine and dandy, but for the price, we could pay down for the dominators who could put up 100+ DKFP. With that in mind, if you want to try your hand with him, I’d be more inclined to fade him in some of your lineups with multiple dominators, and go to him more in your solo dominator ones (if a solo lineup works, that means other expensive drivers aren’t scoring very well, and the raw points would be more valuable). That is, if you don’t just fade him on DraftKings and play him on FanDuel (where he’s more reasonably priced).
Bell has been priced up some, but for good reason. This is a track where he can grab a ceiling finish (top-10), and starting 32nd gives him a pretty hefty ceiling. He’s a core play in all formats on all sites.
Honestly, those are the main two to look at for this group. The others are starting too close to the front and don’t have much dominator upside (Kurt, Almirola, Harvick, etc), so it’s going to be nearly impossible for them to pay off this time around. You could always take some shots with them, but be careful. I would prefer to look at the cheaper options since they will offer some upside, so let’s take a look at them!
Value / punts
Like the previous race, there are a lot of solid options in the low/mid-range here, and this will be the sweet spot to target to tie together your lineups. I’m not a fan of the punts here, so I would look to pay up a little for the value drivers instead (they’re basically all value studs here, but I wanted to list them together, so I’m going over them here).
Buescher, Ty/Austin Dillon, Custer, Preece, and McDowell lead the way here as strong targets. They all come in with natural top-15 upside, and with some help could see a top-10. I’d be fine with any of them in cash, but since some of them are cheaper than others, I would pay down here when required.
After that, the other value drivers come into play; Kenseth, DiBenedetto, Newman, Jones, and Stenhouse are all strong options and should be mixed in with the others. Really, the main reason they’re in “group B” here is due to their starting position compared to the first group, and because those drivers have similar natural ceilings to these drivers. If they don’t come through though, these drivers can just as easily pick up the slack. Either way, get plenty of exposure to this price range, as they offer a lot of non-dominator upside.
Honorable GPP mentions here are Reddick and Byron, but especially Reddick who has looked fantastic and could grab a surprise top-5 finish. That would give him a strong chance of being in the winning lineup, especially if some of the value drivers don’t quite come through. It’s easy to pay down to the other options, so don’t forget to have some exposure here. Finally, consider some Nemechek exposure too, who had an average running position of 16 at Bristol…which was equal to Bell.
Closing thoughts
On paper, this race looks very similar to how Atlanta was set up, just with more lead laps to go around. The dominators and low/mid-range value/value studs look to be the strongest choices, with a lot of duds up top (those who won’t get the dominator points). I’m not opposed to using the dominator stacking feature on either group here, as going either route could pay off. Be creative! Good luck, and I’ll see you all in Slack!