Hello again Army, and welcome to this week’s Calming the Chaos! We head down to Texas for another 1.5-mile race, and seeing that I fell asleep too early last night, I don’t have enough time for a fun intro. Let’s just get to it!
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.
Texas Motor Speedway
Another 1.5-mile track, we will see more laps here than most others (it’s not quite the Coca-Cola 600, but it’s darn close). Like Kentucky, Texas was repaved not too long ago, so I don’t expect things to be dramatically different from last week.
Mostly the same as Kentucky, just hotter with a few more laps
Nov 3, 2019; Fort Worth, TX, USA; Performers drive on the front stretch before the AAA Texas 500 at Texas Motor Speedway. Mandatory Credit: Peter Casey-USA TODAY Sports
The biggest difference is that we’ll have more laps (about 67), which gives some extra importance to our dominators. The extra laps alone could make one more viable, so I would look to have at least two dominators in all formats on both sites. That also makes having some three dominator lineups more viable, since it wouldn’t be too crazy to see three drivers all lead 75-100+ laps. Of course, there’s always a chance we see a solo performance, so you could do a few lineups that way too, but I’d probably limit those this week.
For the most part, stick to 2-3 dominators for most of your lineups on DraftKings and 2 dominators on FanDuel.
The Field
Hybrids
There’s just one this week, Truex. Now normally I would like to see these guys starting closer to the 20’s to be a true hybrid, but since he’s not terribly expensive (on DK), I’m comfortable just listing him this way. For most people that just means you can mix and match him with any other dominator(s) and not worry about him eating into their ceiling
Dominators
Oh, that Almirola. Few have really turned up the heat like he has, and well, it’s hard not to recommend using him as a dominator. He’s driving like somebody that would cost several thousand more, and if he keeps this up, I suspect he’ll be up there sooner than later. I like him for all formats, though if you’re wanting to rely more on the chalk for cash games, you could probably go with Harvick instead. For GPP, I would definitely have a fair amount of exposure to him, because leading stage 1 and finishing in the top-10 (which seems easy for him to do with how hot he’s running) puts him in the winning lineup. When a driver is hot, especially when they’re using the same car with a setup for the same kind of track from one week to the next to the next, play them!
His direct pivot is Blaney, who not only has early race dominator potential, but he could hop up there at any point, so definitely have GPP exposure to him as well. Aric and Blaney more or less led the way at Kentucky, and I would not be the least bit surprised to see them lead the way here at Texas and at Kansas next week, too. If you want to get a little funky, try a few lineups stacking these two, as they could bounce back and forth leading chunks of laps here and there on their way to top-10 or top-5 finishes.
After that, I really like Logano as a “surprise” (not really) dominator. Basically, with how the Kentucky played out statistically for him, it seemed that the driver part of the equation was on point, but his car wasn’t quite all the way there. If his team can figure that part out, watch out, because he has huge upside. You could use him with Almirola or go for the Penske stack with Blaney (or even Keselowski). Speaking of which, I like him too, but not quite as much as these others. Still, he led some laps at Kentucky, and a moderate 50 or so lead laps could put him in the winning lineup with somebody else leading the larger chunk.
I’m still not big on Kyle Busch yet, mostly due to the whole “no practice” thing. However, keep a close eye on him this week. If we see dramatic improvement with him, we’ll know that Kentucky helped him out a lot, and that means he would be primed to explode at Kansas. If you think that Kentucky did enough to prep him for Texas, be sure to play him a lot today, because he does have a ton of upside – when his car is right and he finds his way up front, nobody is passing him.
I didn’t list Hamlin in my notes. It’s not that I hate him or anything, I’m just as big on him here. Now, it’s Hamlin and he knows how to take a race over, so if you think today is his day, play him. I’m not in love with him this week, that’s all.
Regarding Kevin Harvick in GPP…
I had some thoughts about Harvick that I felt were pretty important, so I wanted to make a section just for him. Now, he’s definitely a contender to be a solid dominator this week. Yes, he can absolutely lead a huge chunk of laps and be in the winning lineup, and yes, you should be playing him if you want to cover all of your bases. However, he’s projected to be in the neighborhood of the 40% ownership range. If you read my notes, you know I was already questioning him before that came out, so I thought I should expound on that since that’s a pretty significant number.
The issue isn’t whether or not he can dominate here. We know he can. The issue is that Almirola/Blaney will likely eat up the stage 1 laps, and possibly stage 2. After that, we know Truex will be a major threat to lead the mid/late race all by himself, with Almirola/Blaney still fighting up front, and possibly some others like Logano/Keselowski coming into play as well. We know these drivers are all projected to have significantly less ownership than Harvick.
We also know that next week, we head to Kansas, which is somewhere I pretty much always tell people to play Harvick at. The hope is that the other dominators take over this week, causing Harvick to put up a major dud. If he winds up having north of 40% ownership, that’s going to burn a lot of lineups, and recency bias may cause his ownership to tank next week…and that’s exactly when I would want to jump back on him.
Now, this may not pan out the way I’m hoping, and I may be totally off. But when instances like this pop up (and they don’t very often), I think it’s good to play them in your favor as much as possible. Recency bias is real, in all sports, so use it to your advantage whenever possible!
For basic cash games, it seems he’s going to be chalky, so I would just plug him in there. If you’re doing an actual cash ladder though, feel free to use a combo like Almirola/Truex to help hit those bigger multipliers over people who use Harvick (provided he duds, that is).
Studs / value studs
Once again, this section is absolutely loaded with strong options, and it starts with Bell, Jones, and Reddick yet again. They’re by far my favorite here, and I would just cram them in wherever you can. Unless Texas turns into Talladega, I can all but guarantee at least one of them will be in the winning lineup, and perhaps we’ll see two, or all three of them, in there too. With Bell having that big price drop, I would go ahead and start all cash lineups with him.
After that, Johnson/Byron/Bowyer are all strong options that should be mixed and match with the three others. They don’t offer quite as much upside, but if one of them struggles, one of these other three could easily carry the torch instead. I like them in roughly the order I listed them, and I think this will be a great place for Johnson to bounce back. Byron will be strong if his late improvements at Kentucky carry over (I think they very well could), so I don’t mind a little Hendrick stack here with these two.
As for Bowyer, he averaged a 10th place running position at Kentucky, so there’s certainly hope for him here. However, this isn’t normally a place for him to really shine, so I wouldn’t mind pivoting away in favor of the others.
Kenseth and Custer are in play here too, I just like the other options better. I do think Kenseth will be more in play next week, and I’m not convinced Custer will have a finish as good as he had last week with how that race played out, but if you think he strikes gold twice, feel free to roll him out. He did at least prove he can work his way into top-5 upside, and I can’t take that away form him.
Bowman and DiBenedetto are also in play, though I think I might like them a little better on FanDuel instead of DraftKings. Still, I think Bowman can be used on either site, as he has shown he can really take over a 1.5-mile race out of nowhere. I’m not just as confident in him doing it this week with all the other strong options up front, so keep these two for GPP.
Value / punts
Ty Dillon is looking like the value version of Almirola. I was not expecting him to do nearly as well as he did at Kentucky, and nothing has changed since then, so I suspect he’ll be a force here at Texas as well. I like his brother (Austin) a lot too, especially in GPP where he’s one of the few drivers in this price range to offer legitimate top-10 upside (without relying on a bunch of wrecks).
For a GPP pivot, I really like Nemechek here and I think he could hang with Ty/Austin. I was on him last week, but that race didn’t go as planned, which is good because it should keep his ownership down. Don’t forget about his 17th place finish at Charlotte, and that race was 100 miles longer!
After that, there’s McDowell, Preece, Lajoie, and Suarez. I’m not really in love with any of them, though I don’t mind just dropping McDowell (I wasn’t too impressed with his performance at Kentucky) and focusing on the other pivots instead. Preece has decent upside but likes to find trouble, so keep him in GPP (he’s sort of a less safe Nemechek). I think LaJoie still has a surprise or two left in him this year, and he could see a decent top-25 finish, but he’s even more risky than Preece. And Suarez, well..I wouldn’t mind just dumping him either, honestly.
Finally, good ol’ Buescher. He is the other driver in this range with actual top-10 upside, and he’s super cheap, so definitely have exposure to him, even with him starting 16th. I really like him in FanDuel, but for his price on DraftKings, a strong finish can put him in the winning lineup. Like Truex, don’t play a 1.5-mile without exposure here!
Quick recap
Dominators (2 for cash, 1-3 for GPP but lean 2-3)
- Primary – Almirola/Blaney, Harvick (chalk, so take Harvick in basic cash games)
- Secondary – Truex, Logano, Keselowski
- Secondary pivots – Elliott, Kyle Busch, Bowman
- Solo – Blaney/Almirola, Truex/Logano/Harvick
Studs
- Take 1-3 per lineup: Bell/Jones/Reddick, Johnson/Byron, Bowyer
- Pivots – Kenseth/Custer, Bowman/DiBenedetto
Value studs
- Ty/Austin, Nemechek
- Pivot – Buescher
Value drivers
- Preece, LaJoie, McDowell, Suarez
Punts
- I’d rather pay up to the value drivers here
Closing thoughts
Even though I tried to get this out quicker, I still rambled on too much. Whoops! Good luck, and I’ll see you all in Slack!