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NASCAR Calming the Chaos 6/27/20 – Pocono

Hello again Army, and welcome to this week’s Calming the Chaos!  We head to Pocono this weekend, one of my favorite tracks, for a double header at the Tricky Triangle.  That will present some unique challenges, but that’s what we’re here for!

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.

Pocono Raceway

As the name implies, the Tricky Triangle is unique not only in its shape, but also due to how each turn is different, making it a unique challenge for our drivers.  Experience is very important here, but unlike the short tracks where pure skill can overcome subpar equipment, this is also a rather large track with long straightaways.  This means that not only will driver skill play a big role (bonus points for those good at large flat tracks like Indy and Auto Club), but so will their car, as raw horsepower is very important here.  Basically, if Martinsville and Michigan had a triangular shaped baby, it would be Pocono.

A different beast lurks at this track

Last week the invisible enemy was the looming threat of big crashes, and although they didn’t quite impact the race as much as they could have, we still need to prepare for the threats Pocono represents.  It’s a different beast however, and instead of worrying about large groups of cars crashing all at the same time, the issue here is that this track can be very hard on both drivers and equipment alike.

Jul 27, 2019; Long Pond, PA, USA; NASCAR Cup Series driver Kurt Busch (1) drives through the garage during practice for the Gander RV 400 at Pocono Raceway. Mandatory Credit: Matthew O’Haren-USA TODAY Sports

In other words, expect to see more mental mistakes and mechanical failures than we do at other tracks, especially from those in bad equipment!  There are a handful of tracks that I recommend straight up fading all of the punts, and this is one of them.  While other tracks have one good reason to do it, this one has at least two; those in slower cars simply won’t be able to keep up and gain any positions, and those in cars with lower budgets have a higher chance of seeing mechanical failures at this demanding track.  Where we expect to see mass wrecks at Daytona/Talladega, I expect to see more frequent cautions with fewer impacted cars in each instance (though the ones impacted will likely wind up in the garage).

Fun fact: over the past decade, the three tracks with the highest DNF (did not finish) rates are Daytona, Talladega, and you guessed it…Pocono.

However, that doesn’t only hold true for the punts!  There are others that I think will struggle here, so there will be several good fade candidates to look at.  I’ll get to them after we look at the better options this week, so let’s get to that now.

The Field

Even though we have fewer laps this week, I do think lead laps will be a little more important, as I don’t expect to see anywhere near as many lead changes.  This is a difficult track to pass on, especially with the newer packages, so expect to see a single driver soak up a bunch of lead laps in between cautions (unlike all of the lead changes we see at Talladega/Daytona).  With that in mind, I would go for at least one dominator in all formats, and I don’t mind using two if salary permits.

Other than that, the real upside here will be finishing position and place differential, so be sure to prioritize drivers who can offer those two things!

Dominators

Historically, Kyle Busch and Harvick have shown a lot of prowess here, each with loads of lead laps and top-10 & top-5 finishes to go with them.  Both are solid options for dominators, and I don’t even mind stacking them together on DraftKings due to how cheap Kyle is (I could see Kyle leading early/mid with Harvick leading mid/late).  If you’re looking for one to fade, I don’t mind dropping Kyle Busch.  As for why, he hasn’t looked as dominant since we’ve gone without practices, and he’s among the drivers who utilizes practice the most throughout the year.  This seems to have hurt him a lot, and it’s shown as we haven’t seen him take over any races since the return.  For that reason I don’t mind giving more exposure to other dominators instead.

After them, Blaney is a solid option starting 2nd (I don’t see Almriola holding the early lead, as his history here hasn’t been dominant by any means), and I can see him holding the lead through stage 1 and finishing in the top-10 (even top-5).  After that, I like pivoting in guys like Hamlin, LoganoTruex, Elliott, and Keselowski.

I also want to point out Kurt here, because while I don’t think we need him for cash games, I like him in GPP as this is one of those tracks where we should be taking shots with him (it suits him very well).  He could grab a top-3 finish as well as 25-50+ lead laps, so don’t forget to have some exposure to him!

Due to the nature of this track and driver salaries, I’d probably stick to GPP for most of these guys, but I don’t mind using Blaney, Harvick, and/or Hamlin for cash games.  This is subject to change, so check the coach’s cheat sheets for the final verdict.

Studs / value studs

DraftKings waited until we had the starting order before releasing salaries, and with that came a huge spike for Bell.  Other drivers are cheap enough that we can take him fairly easily, so you can default to taking him in cash games.  For GPP, especially in 20-max entries, I like either going all in or all out, rather than trying to match the field.  Me personally, I’m going to be fading him in GPP.  My reasoning is that he hasn’t looked overly impressive at other flat tracks, and has seemed to struggle passing other cars at others.  If he doesn’t finish in the top-20 somewhere, I don’t see him being in the winning lineup, and I don’t think it’s a lock that he will do that.  It’s a gamble, but I don’t think it’s a bad one, especially if he winds up being chalky.  This is a decision we all have to make, and I won’t argue against somebody just locking him in.

Jones looks to be a strong (and probably chalky) option.  He has three straight top-5’s here, starts 19th, and is still under-priced.  Love him in all formats.

A more expensive version of him is Bowyer, who is starting 18th but is also priced up a bit.  I like him in all formats if you can afford him, but if you can’t take him in cash, be sure to take him in GPP.  While he doesn’t offer the same “value” upside as Jones, this could very easily be a race where we just need the raw points, and Bowyer can offer that (last three races: 11th, 5th, and 11th place finishes).

This has been a solid track for Byron, and starting 16th gives him a fair amount of upside for his price (he’s sort of the in-between of Jones and Bowyer).  His last three races here resulted in 4th, 9th, and 6th place finishes, and I don’t think another top-10 should be overly difficult for him to obtain.  Love him as a pivot or addition to Jones/Bowyer.

After that, we have Johnson (mostly mediocre or bad finishes over the last 8 races) and Bowman (finished 3rd in 2018, but also has an average finish of 25th in his other 7 attempts).  Given those blurbs, I’d prefer to keep them as GPP pivots; plenty of upside, but I can’t trust their floors, and I think we have safer options with similar (or higher) upside.

Value / punts

We have a few strong options here, starting with Ty Dillon who starts 34th and could grab a top-25 to top-20 finish, making him a solid cash game choice.  However, for GPP, like Bell, consideration could be made to fade him instead.  One could argue that since 2017, his finishes here have been trending backwards (chronologically he’s finished 17th, 23rd, 24th, 27, and then 29th since the July 2017 race).  It seems that the newer package has made it increasingly difficult for him to pass others, and if that holds true again, that could make him a very good fade target in GPP.

Aside from him, look at guys like BuescherAustinDiBenedettoPreece, Custer, LaJoie, and McDowell to help put together your lineups.  I like them roughly in that order (finishing position upside scales approximately scales down from Buescher to McDowell), but they are my favorites in this price range.  I think they will offer most of the upside that we either have to pay way up for (Bell), or that we aren’t getting due to there only being 130 laps.

Oh, and last but not least, Reddick.  Until further notice, consider Reddick a top-10 threat at every race.  He looks to be a future (if not present) stud and they refuse to price him up as such.  Take advantage of this!

As for the punts, like I said earlier, I’m not interested in any of them this week.  I will be fading them in all formats on all sites.

Closing thoughts

Pocono is unique not only on the track, but also in how we should build for it in DFS.  The pricing on DraftKings gives us a few options where we can make some bold stands (i.e. Bell), and there are plenty of strong mid-ranged options that we can defer to in order to build up our lineups’ ceilings.  Don’t be afraid to go against the grain here in GPP, as it wouldn’t take much for those moves to pay off.  Good luck, and I’ll see you all in Slack!