The races were borderline unwatchable on Saturday, but hopefully you made some DFS money to make it worthwhile. I saw nothing to change my mind about how to approach cash games for Sunday's race. We want a modified superspeedway approach with guys starting further back in the field, but they must have a strong car or team. I'm not just indiscriminately taking anyone who's starting in the back as you might at a superspeedway. My cash game pool starts at 24th with Ryan Preece, so let's go through the list in starting order --

• 24th Ryan Preece - Solid record at drafting tracks, raced well here in the Trucks Series last year.
• 25th Daniel Suarez - Finished 4th and 6th at Atlanta last year. And has finished in the Top 8 at four of the last six drafting races. Of note, his teammate Ross Chastain finished 2nd in both Atlanta races last year, so it was 2nd, 2nd, 4th and 6th for Trackhouse. Small sample, obviously, but really good.
• 26th Ty Dillon - Ty has been pretty solid throughout his career at drafting tracks, but I don't have a lot of faith in this #77 car. I'd stick to better cars in cash games, but might pivot to Dillon in tournaments because he burned a lot of people finishing dead last at Daytona earlier this year so his ownership should be low.
• 27th Ricky Stenhouse - The converse of Dillon in that Stenhouse won at Daytona and will probably attract a lot of attention starting 27th. He's a very good play. But, know that he finished 31st in both Atlanta races last year and finished 22nd or worse in all six drafting races last year. He's very much a boom or bust kind of play.
• 28th Eric Jones - He finished 37th at Daytona this year, but had finished in the Top 18 five consecutive drafting races before that. He finished 14th and 4th at Atlanta last year.
• 29th Martin Truex - 8th and 11th at Atlanta last year and he's finished in the Top 15 in six of his last seven drafting races.
• 30th AJ Allmendinger - Was a consistent top finisher at drafting tracks in the Xfinity Series and finished 6th at Daytona to start this Cup season.
• 31st Corey LaJoie - Had a 5th place finish here in the Spring and was leading late in the Fall race before being pushed aside by Chase Elliott. He has a long history of doing well in drafting races and should be very highly owned.
• 32nd Cody Ware - Pass in all but the biggest multi-entry tournaments
• 33rd Harrison Burton - In his seven races at drafting tracks in the Cup Series, he has only finished better then 25th twice. He should have a strong car and has great upside, but the record (albeit in a limited sample) speaks for itself.
• 34th JJ Yeley - Pass in all but the biggest multi-entry tournaments
• 35th Ty Gibbs - He did win an Xfinity race here last year, but also finished 35th in the other race here. Finished 25th at Daytona earlier this year. Will probably be highly owned and there's a ton of upside.
• 36th BJ McLeod - Pass in all but the biggest multi-entry tournaments

Here are a couple of tournament plays I like--

• Ross Chastain - As noted above 2nd in both races here last year. Four Top 5s and another Top 10 in his seven drafting races with Trackhouse -- but also a 33rd and 40th. So total checkers or wreckers kind of play. I don't think it's crazy to play him in cash since he starts 18th, but that is pretty bold.
• Austin Dillon and Kyle Busch - RCR always brings strong cars to drafting tracks and I feel like both might be under owned (Dillon in particular since he starts 13th).
  
• William Byron - Dominated the Spring race here last year and led another 41 laps in the Fall. Fastest car all year long and maybe some get spooked by the penalty and click on Kyle Busch right below him.

Just a quick write up for Saturday. New Atlanta is closest to a super speedway race where we see close together pack style racing and can expect a lot of cautions and cars crashing out of the race. We are also likely to see multiple leaders and no one getting more then about 8-10 fastest laps. So our key goals - especially in cash games - is finishing position, positive position difference and avoiding negative scores. One big difference from the super speedways is that this track is much shorter so it's easier for guys in inferior equipment to get lapped. So I'll be using a modified super speedway approach and looking for guys who have experience and are with good teams starting from about 20th on back. For Trucks, I'd start with John Hunter Nemechek in 24th. And for Xfinity, I'd start with Justin Haley in 18th.

Good luck on Saturday. I'll have more depth on the Cup race Saturday night.

Sunday Morning Update: Cup Race
Here we go. Let's have a big day Sunday. I'm going to focus first on safer, cash game plays and then get into a few lower owned, upside plays for tournaments--
Top Cash Game Plays

• Kevin Harvick - Talk about safe. The last time Harvick finished outside the Top 10 at Phoenix was in March 2013. That's nineteen straight Top 10 finishes. He may not have the win upside he used to have each race here at Phoenix, but the consistency is amazing. He'll roll off 15th on Sunday so gives you some position difference upside as well. And he was very, very good over a long run in practice on Friday.
• Aric Almirola - It was somewhat surprising to me, but Almirola is another driver who has been incredibly consistent at Phoenix. In ten Phoenix races with SHR, Almirola has five Top 10 finishes and only one finish outside the Top 20. Dating back further to his Petty days, Almirola has finished outside the Top 20 only twice since March 2012 (a span of twenty two races). Starting 31st on Sunday, Almirola brings +15 position difference upside and the safety of his long record of consistent finishes here -- all for only 69 hundred bucks. Nice. He fired off slow in practice, but really moved up the charts over the long run with much stronger 15, 20 and 25 lap averages.
  • Note - The short track racing package for Sunday's race is brand new and much different then last year, so I'm not going overboard with weighting past results. But guys like Harvick and Almirola have already done it over such a long period of time and using so many different racing packages that I feel their past history is very telling and predictive of what we can expect on Sunday.
• Tyler Reddick - He does not have much history of success at Phoenix, but he had a great practice session on Friday. Like Almirola, he fired off on the slow side but showed very little fall off over the long run and was really strong over 15, 20, 25 and 30 lap averages. This team has struggled to start the season, but Reddick always has that race winning upside in him if you can accept the risk that comes with it.
• Joey Logano - Honestly, I'm still traumatized by last week but I can't leave him off the list because of his history of success at Phoenix. He, of course, won the championship race here last November and has four Top 3 finishes in the last six races here. He starts 16th so offers some safety and position difference upside. He was very fast over a short run in practice, but seemed to fall off after about 10 laps, which is somewhat concerning.
• Alex Bowman - No one has been faster or finishing better then Bowman to start this season. He rolls off 18th on Sunday and is underpriced at $8,600. On the plus side, he showed Top 10-12 speed in practice on the 10 and 15 laps averages on Friday. On the negative side, since joining HMS full time, he has never finished inside the Top 12 at Phoenix (a span of ten races). I do think it's likely he breaks that bad streak on Sunday, but it's no sure thing.
• Kyle Larson - Larson was an absolute beast in practice and qualifying. In the first round of qualifying he was .2 of a second faster then anyone else. The margin in the second round was under .1 but still impressive. In practice on Friday, he had the best 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30 lap averages. William Byron and Reddick were kind of hanging around with him on long run speed but were still each about .1 of a second slower per lap. It's really been complete pre-race domination. Larson has been really strong in his last eight races at Phoenix. In Fall 2021, he won the championship race from pole leading 107 laps. Last Spring he was running inside the Top 10 all day long until his engine blew up in the 3rd stage. He finished 9th here in the championship race last Fall. It wouldn't totally shock me if Hamlin or Byron had something for him early in the race, but Larson really has dominated the weekend so far and there's no real reason to think that changes much on Sunday.

Top Leverage Plays

• As far as dominators go, I can see scenarios where William Byron, Denny Hamlin and Christopher Bell challenge Larson.
  • Byron seems most likely since he was able to hang pretty close with Larson over a long run in practice. Maybe we see a repeat of last week with them both dominating up front.
  • Hamlin was not fast in practice and never did a real long run, so it was a surprise to see him qualify so well. The Toyotas have seemed to have pretty good long run speed, so it wouldn't surprise me if Hamlin and Gabehart figure that out for Sunday and he challenges for the lead. And this team isn't afraid to try something different (like pitting earlier or later then everyone else) to get up front. But there's also a risk this ends up similar to Logano last week where the practice numbers tell the story and Hamlin fades quickly and never comes back.
  • Bell fired off very slow in practice, but also showed very little fall off on his 10, 15 and 20 lap averages. If he can fire off a bit better and/or work his way to the front, he could have the long run speed to keep the lead for a long time.
• Further down the board, I'd look at Chris Buescher and Rickey Stenhouse as lower owned pivots to have a chance to finish in the 12th-15th range.
  • Buescher had a decent practice session on Friday and did a long run that should help them with adjustments for the race.
  • Stenhouse might be in a slightly stronger spot. Not only is he cheaper, he also participated in the January test here (see link below). And he was pretty strong in practice on Friday showing Top 5-ish speed over the 15, 20 and 25 lap averages. Over the 25 lap run, he was only about .2 second per lap off Larson's crazy pace.

Good luck on Sunday everybody!!!


Saturday Update -- With same day qualifying for the Xfinity Series, I won't get a chance to post anything for that race. But I will be able to put up a Cup article on Saturday night/Sunday morning, so check back then. Good luck this weekend.

Lots of personal stuff this weekend, so not sure how much I'll be able to post. Here are a few pre-weekend notes.

• Totally new package for the Cup Series cars with much less downforce and rear grip compared to last year. I wouldn't say to throw out flat track data from last year, but it is definitely questionable.
• There was a test session here a few weeks ago where some guys tested out something similar to this package. Have to figure these guys have somewhat of a leg up. Links HERE and HERE to read up about it.
• Lots of talk that it is all about who guesses right based on the simulator work this week. I'll be most interested in guys who do long runs in practice because that'll be the best indicator they are somewhat comfortable with the car and will actually learn something useful in the extended practice session.

Good luck. I'll try to post something else before the Cup race if I can and think it will be useful.

Unfortunately the Logano cash lineup crapped the bed. The back up Byron/Larson one, however, smashed and scored a big win for a very profitable day. Looking forward to Phoenix.

Let's get right to our preferred cash game strategy for Sunday's race--

• We've got some guys that are going to be very popular, which makes me nervous because it could reduce a lot of cash games to a 1 vs 1 or 2 vs 2 situation and gives even bad DFS players several free squares.
• Tyler Reddick should be near 100% owned and is a must play for cash games. The team did an engine replacement on Saturday, but the car should be fully ready to go on Sunday and he's got Top 10 potential. So he could score 60 points or more even without a single lap led or fastest lap.
• Harrison Burton is in a similar situation without quite the same upside. He'll be going to a Penske backup after a practice crash where he reportedly drove over a lug nut on the track which damaged his car and dropped fluid on the track causing him to spin. He doesn't have the Top 10 upside of Reddick, but could certainly challenge for a Top 20 and 40+ DK points.
• Joey Logano should be pretty popular starting from the pole. I'm on board with this play because Logano is very good as a front runner, is good on restarts, is hard to pass and has a solid pit crew. Looking back at last year, Logano started from pole four times - Darlington 1 where he won and led 107 laps, Darlington 2 where he finished 4th and led 64 laps, The Roval where he finished 17th and led 18 laps and Phoenix where he won and led 187 laps. I'm throwing out The Roval since it's a road course and really isn't comparable at all. At all three oval tracks where he started from pole he did great. My only concern is that Logano struggled a bit with long run speed in practice while guys like William Byron, Kyle Larson and Ryan Blaney did well there. All are starting in the first three rows and could possibly challenge Logano early if we get a longer green flag run to start the race. 
• Josh Berry is a little bit of a mystery for me. He is subbing for the injured Chase Elliott in the top tier #9 car. I just don't have a good feel for how popular he will be. I'd probably take a pass because he lacks experience in the Next Gen Cup car and I'd expect him to be very conservative in this race so he has limited upside and is unlikely to kill you even if he is heavily owned by others.
• Austin Dillon should garner some attention starting 26th, but I'm really concerned with the lack of speed he had on Saturday. His lap times were well off the pace. That said, he's been super consistent at 1.5 mile tracks over the last year and I don't doubt his team's ability to execute their way into a Top 15 or so finish with good strategy and fast pit stops.
• Daniel Suarez is the third of this group (Berry, Dillon and Suarez) starting further back at about an $8k salary. Suarez starts 24th and had a rocket last week and last year here in Vegas. Trackhouse as an organization has started off the year with a lot of speed. While he's not what I'd call a safe thing, I do prefer him over Berry and Dillion because of the outright speed and Top 10 upside.
• Ryan Preece is another cheaper option starting 31st. He's in the Harrison Burton boat to me. Hope for a Top 20ish kind of day.
• Kyle Larson and Ross Chastain are other lap leader options. Larson had the best overall practice session and the team was really happy late in last week's race because Larson had a Top 3 car on speed (if not the fastest car) at the end of that race. They expected a lot of carryover to this week. In his one year at Trackhouse, Chastain had two Top 3 finishes last year here at Las Vegas. He, too, was amazing last week and seems to almost always find his way to the front with sheer speed, great restarts and fast pit stops. Neither is a bad choice and it's a coin flip between them for me.

So happy to have full practice and qualifying done on Friday so we have time to prepare for Saturday's Xfinity Series race. Keep in mind we have numerous cars starting in the rear because teams went to back up cars after Auto Club last weekend. (This is a one-off Xfinity only rule where the teams are required to run the same car back-to-back weeks at Auto Club and Las Vegas.) They are: Cole Custer, Sheldon Creed, Josh Berry, Brandon Jones, Kyle Busch and Gray Gaulding. All will still be scored from their qualifying spot.

• Justin Allgaier and J.H. Nemechek - These two seem like the strongest cars and I expect one or both to lead early as other contenders work their way forward from starting in the back. Both have sky high upsides and relatively safe floors as long as they don't wreck. (Nemechek starts 7th, but will actually line up on the inside of Row 2 after the #00 and #8 drop to the rear.) They were 1-2 in green flag speed last week and will be in the same cars with a lot of carryover expected.
• Kyle Busch - Starts 11th, so has some position difference upside. He wasn't very happy with the car in practice and I'm not sure this car can get to the front and lead -- especially since he'll start from the rear. Probably to expensive to make any sense.
• Brandon Jones and Sammy Smith - Both are in top level equipment and have a good shot to finish in the Top 10. Smith was a strong 5th in green flag speed last week.
• Joe Graf - He's in a Joe Gibbs car, so you at least have to look at him at a sub $8k salary. It's just so hard to click the button though since he's had so much trouble finishing races during the last two years in this series.
• There are a lot of sub-$6k punt options. We have DGM teammates (Josh Williams and Josh Bilicki). Emerling Gase teammates (Joey Gase and CJ McLaughlin), Alpha Prime teammates (Jeffrey Earnhardt and Ryan Ellis), JDM teammates (Bayley Currey and Brennan Poole) and SSGL teammates (Gray Gaulding and Blaine Perkins).
  • I don't love any of these, but don't hate any either. They're all usable. I'd probably put Alpha Prime on top, followed by DGM, SSGL, JDM and then Emerling Gase.  UPDATE - Obviously, don't use CJ McLaughlin -- he's been replaced as the driver of the #53 and will not score points.

Trucks Series articles tend to be shorter because I usually don't know the starting order before I post them. For this week, I'm going to post some notes about the drivers I'm most interested in heading into Friday based on their DK salary and expected performance. Obviously, Friday practice and qualifying can change a lot, so pay attention before lineups lock.

I also have a few head-to-head bets at the end. This is our first real Trucks Series race where the dramatic difference in Truck and team quality will be on display and I'm not sure the books have properly accounted for some off-season driver moves.

DFS Plays 

• Kyle Busch - Always a good chance to dominant a Truck Series race, but this will be the team's first time using a Chevrolet and the crew chief Brian Pattie has been in the Cup Series for the last 15 years and might need some time to adjust to the Trucks Series. It's a whole different beast. That's a long way of saying I'm not sure he'll be able to dominate enough to justify that salary.
• John Hunter Nemechek and Ty Majeski - More reasonably priced guys that I think can dominate the race. JHN is with a new team, but they should have plenty of resources to compete as a championship level team this season. Majeski remains with ThorSport where he had a win and five Top 5 finishes in nine races at 1.5 mile tracks last season.
• Carson Hocevar - He was really good at the 1.5 mile tracks last year with five out of nine Top 10 finishes and no finish worse then 16th.
• Tanner Gray - Could be too cheap for the quality of team and truck he should have. Can sometimes be incident prone, however.
• Chase Purdy - Too cheap for a Kyle Busch truck even if they are new to Chevrolet.
• Kaz Grala - Similar to Tanner Gray, too cheap for the quality. And probably a better driver.
• Hailie Deegan - She can have trouble staying out of trouble, but the truck should be pretty good and the price is right.
• Bret Holmes and Nick Sanchez - Younger, talented guys who could start a little further back but have solid trucks. Sanchez is with a new team that has an alliance with Kyle Busch's team and has old KBM crew chief Danny Stockman, who is a veteran of the Trucks Series. Holmes has gotten varying levels of support from GMS and has enough experience to raise him above some of the rookies and kids in their first few races.

Bets

• John Hunter Nemechek -115 over Ross Chastain - Better equipment/team and a big edge in recent Truck experience. Ross has run into numerous mechanical and pit road problems in the last few years because this is a part time/rotating driver Niece team that has not have top resources or pit crews. Maybe that turn that around this season, but I need to see it first.
• Grant Enfinger -110 over Christian Eckes - Eckes moved from ThorSport to McAnally in the off season, which is a significant downgrade in my book. Enfinger remains in the top GMS truck.
• Rajah Caruth -115 over Timmy Hill - If Caruth doesn't wreck he wins this easily. Hill was no better then 26th in Green Flag Speed at the 1.5 mile tracks last year whereas Caruth should have easy Top 20 speed in a GMS truck.
• Hailie Deegan +145 over Colby Howard - Another team downgrade with Howard moving to CR7 Motorsports, which had little speed at 1.5 mile tracks last season. Deegan should be the favorite so to get +145 is absurd.
• Bret Holmes -115 over Daniel Dye - Dye comes up from ARCA and will run his first 1.5 mile race in a Truck. I'll take the guy who has been here before in a solid ride.

It looks like there's next to zero chance we get any on track activity on Saturday, so my current plan is to wait until Saturday night to write up my notes for the Cup Series race and Xfinity Series race - which would take place later Sunday after the Cup race.

​Stay tuned.

Saturday Night Update
NASCAR screwed up the Xfinity slate for us, so let's talk about Sunday's Cup Series race. I focus on cash games and there's not a lot to say about this one. We've got obvious chalk starting from 28th on back. I expect 75% (or more) of people will start their cash lineups with Chase Elliott, Tyler Reddick, William Byron and Eric Jones. That leaves a 2 v 2 match-up to see who wins. And there aren't a lot of likely candidates for those last two spots either, with most people pairing Austin Dillion or Chase Briscoe with a cheaper driver. I'm not going to give out a lineup, but focus on car and team quality for that last spot. When in doubt, I want the best car and team I can get down in that salary range.

My overall advice on weeks like this where cash games will have a ton of duplicate lineups is to pull back a bit on cash games. It's Week 2 of a long season. We've got plenty of time to make good money by making better choices then our competition. In weeks like this where most of the choices are so obvious, we don't have the same edge. If you want to go heavier somewhere, switch to some larger tournaments and have some fun fading chalk and getting different with the last few spots. Fade one or two of the expensive chalk guys and then have some fun. A few guys to consider -- Ryan Preece, Ross Chastain, Kyle Larson and Ty Gibbs.

Good luck everyone.

Also, I'll normally have a more in depth discussion of the guys I like on a weekly basis but things are so obvious this week that it doesn't make sense to waste time with a lot of detail. 

Here we go. Scroll down a few entries for some bets that look good - hopefully you can still find some numbers that are reasonably close.

For DFS cash games, we're obviously looking at guys starting farther back who have some upside. To me there's no reason to use anyone starting higher then 25th. So let's break down 25th-40th:

• Top Targets
  • Kyle Busch -- starts 36th and RCR traditionally has very fast speedway cars (RCR cars finished 1-2 at Daytona last Summer)
  • Ty Gibbs -- starts 33rd and already has a 13th place finish at Daytona last Summer -- can work with (and has certainly been well coached by) teammate Bubba Wallace and team owner Denny Hamlin who are both top tier super speedway guys
• Do Not Use
  • BJ McLeod, Connor Daly, Cody Ware, Riley Herbst and Travis Pastrana -- I've got questions about the driver, car or both and there are enough other good options without those questions
  • Ricky Stenhouse -- He starts 31st so is tempting, but he has a long history of being overly aggressive at superspeedways and there are plenty of other options down here
• Solid Plays (ranked generally in order of preference)
  • Jimmie Johnson -- Almost made the Top Targets list because he starts 39th. But he was not a top super speedway driver to close out his full-time career and he's now been away from this type of racing for two years. I suspect that leads him to be more conservative, which is what we want.
  • AJ Allmendinger -- He had an amazing run on the super speedways in the Xfinity Series 
  • Ty Dillon -- Has generally been solid at super speedways and starts 37th so has virtually no downside -- also this #77 Spire team finished inside the Top 20 in five of the six super speedway races last year with Landon Cassill/Josh Bilicki
  • Chase Briscoe -- Fords have looked really strong all week long, so I'll gladly use the Ford  starting furthest back in the field (30th) (I know Ware and Herbst are in Fords, but not competitive ones).
  • Justin Haley -- Same as Allmendinger and I expect the teammates to try to hook up and work together in the 500
  • Eric Jones -- Finished three of the six super speedway races last season in the Top 10. He starts 25th so there is some added risk or else he would be much higher.
  • Austin Dillon and Tyler Reddick -- Essentially the same guy. No problem with either, just think we have near equal options starting further back with less downside risk from wrecks. They did finish 1-2 at Daytona last Summer though.

Trucks went well with the Young's and RBR strategy. It's a similar play for me in the Xfinity race. For more on the overall strategy, see the Trucks post below. Here are the Xfinity teams I'll be focused on because they're likely to be slower, start near the back and not race aggressively early in the race:

• BJ McLeod -- Anthony Alfredo and Garrett Smithley -- top targets for cash games
• DGM -- Josh Williams. Alex Labbe and Josh Bilicki -- solid group of veteran drivers
• JD Motorsports -- Bayley Currey and Brennan Poole -- really solid drivers but some question about equipment and reliability
• Emerling Gase -- Joey Gase and CJ McLaughlin -- same as JD Motorsports although McLaughlin is a step below the others
• SS Green Light -- Gray Gaulding and Blaine Perkins -- Gaulding is a guy I used all the time when he was in this series in the past because he's pretty high on my "Can I trust him?" scale. I'm listing them last only because I'm not entirely sure how they'll approach the race. They might be a little more aggressive then I'd like for cash games. But they're still on the table if starting far enough back.

Bets
I don't really bet favorites at super speedways because so much unexpected chaos can happen. Here are some longer numbers that I think have value:

• Herbst +2500
• Snider +2800
• Klingerman +2800
• Ryan Sieg +5000
• Clements +6600