Hey all -- been sick all week so I'm not going to post any Texas content.  Hope to be back up to speed for Xfinity and Cup next weekend at Bristol.

FRIDAY NIGHT UPDATE:  After practice today, a few more names are standing out as budget options in a Kyle Busch lineup.  Raphael Lessard is near minimum price but is running in top notch Kyle Busch Motorsports equipment.  He had good speed in practice.  But it's his first ever Truck series race so I would use him only if he starts pretty far back in the field.  Tyler Ankrum is running in the #17 truck, which has been solid this year with multiple different drivers.

Love the racing at Martinsville.  Here are my thoughts going into the Trucks Series race on Saturday.

• Pay extra close attention to qualifying.  There are going to be nearly 40 trucks that attempt to qualify for only 32 starting spots.  (The entry list is so large because the race is very close to Charlotte meaning travel costs are minimal for the part time teams.)  A significant number of drivers are not even going to make the race.  Don't be that guy (or gal) who mistakenly starts one of them.
• There will be lots of cautions so lots of restarts and short runs.  Kyle Busch loves restarts and short runs.  
• Speaking of which, you can set it and forget it on Kyle Busch.  He's a machine right now and should dominate this race.  With 250 laps, there are a ton of points to be won for fastest laps and laps led.  The last time Kyle raced in the Trucks here (April 2016), he led 123 laps and had 41 fastest laps.  Those were both nearly double the next closest driver.  That race also featured Kyle Larson or the domination by Busch would have been even more one-sided.  I would fade him only in a contrarian third (or deeper) lineup in a tournament.
• Myatt Snider and Austin Hill are very badly under priced at $7,000 and $7,500, respectively.  Snider is running an extra entry for Truck powerhouse ThorSport.  He was full time with them last year and finished 6th and 3rd in the Martinsville races.  Hill stepped up in class this year joining the defending champion team at Hattori Racing.  He's been solid here in the past on a mediocre team (9th last Spring, Top 20 in the last 5) so should be even better with a power house team.
• Corey Roper and Tyler Dippel have both been very solid this year and offer good salary relief options.  They don't have top level equipment, but they are full time rides on decent teams so should finish in front of all the back markers and all or most of the part time teams that make the field.
• Timmy Hill and Austin Theriault are possibilities at near minimum salaries.  Don't expect much, but they might be viable if starting at the back.  I wouldn't use both, but you could use one at near min. price to allow you to get another top level driver to pair with Busch.
• Korbin Forrister and Sheldon Creed are also on my radar.  Creed in particular will be running for GMS, which is probably the top Truck Series team overall.  He's young though and has very little Martinsville experience.
• If you do fade Busch in a contrarian lineup, Johnny Sauter is the guy who has dominated the most recent races without a Cup series driver in the field.  He has won 2 of the last 5 races and finished in the Top 3 in 4 of those races.  Last Fall, he won at Martinsville while leading 148 laps and running 66 fastest laps -- both by far the most in the field.

We had another winning Fantasy NASCAR analysis for the Xfinity Series race led by Kyle Busch.  Ryan Sieg, Brandon Brown and Matt Mills were other guys we mentioned as lineup fits that did a great job.

On the Cup side, I'm always up front on this page, and I've got to tell you I have not spent as much time as I normally do watching practice this weekend.  This is an unpaid hobby of mine so other things have to take priority.  I still did a good chunk of research throughout the week and spent some time with the practice numbers, though, so wanted to give you all some thoughts about the race -- just with that word of caution.

• It's obvious to lock in Martin Truex in all formats.  He's good at these tracks to begin with and now comes with huge position difference upside starting 27th.
  
• Eric Jones, Alex Bowman and William Byron are three well priced options.
  
  • Jones was shown with the fastest average lap time over 15 laps in final practice.  He starts 18th.  
    
  • Bowman was shown with the 6th best average lap time over 15 laps in final practice just behind Brad Keselowski and in front of Joey Logano.  He starts 23rd.
  • Byron has not been as fast as these other two this weekend.  But he is the cheapest and his Hendrick teammates have shown excellent speed all weekend.  He starts 22nd and we'd be hoping for a finish in the 15th-18th range.
    
• Kyle Larson and Brad Keselowski seem like the best high end cash game options to me.  They both have excellent records here and have good position difference upside starting 15th and 13th respectively.
  
  • Larson won this race two years ago and finished 2nd last year.  He was 8th in 10-lap average in final practice -- but did not do a longer run to 15 laps or beyond like some others.
    
  • Keselowski has finished 1st, 9th, 2nd and 4th in the last four races here.   He was 3rd in 10 lap average, 5th in 15 lap average and 2nd in 20 lap average in final practice.  We don't often see Brad do long runs in practice, so the fact that he did such a long run is very encouraging.  And all three Penske cars showed great speed.  My only concern in a cash game setting with BK is that the team might be inclined to take more chances going for a win since they already have a win in hand and a place in the playoffs.  It's the right call for them, but adds risk for us.
    
  • There's a lot to like about guys starting up front like Joey Logano, Kyle Busch and Kevin Harvick.  My concern with them is that they all lead some number of laps and split the dominator points many ways.  If I had to pick one, it would be Logano.  In the end, I think Larson and BK have a safer floor and just as much upside.
• I don't like any of the punt plays this week.  You will probably need one though and I'd go with the cheapest credible option on the board.  To me that's Corey LaJoie starting in 30th. 
• Kurt Busch and Ryan Blaney are other guys I'm trying to work in.
  

Good luck!

The key question again this week is whether to roster Kyle Busch at $15,000.  As of now, I'm planning to do that and here's why:

• Cup drivers have dominated the recent Auto Club Xfinity races.  Last year, Joey Logano was the only top Cup driver in the race.  He started from 2nd and led 139 laps on the way to a dominant victory.  He also had 45 fastest laps -- more than twice the nearest competitor.  In 2017, Logano, Kyle Larson and Kyle Busch combined to lead 146 of 150 laps and scored 82 fastest laps compared to 18 for the rest of the field.  In 2016, Kyle Busch led 133 of 150 laps and had by the far the most fastest laps.  And in 2015, Kevin Harvick and Denny Hamlin combined to lead 133 laps.
• This week, Kyle Busch and Ryan Preece are the only Cup drivers in the Xfinity race.  Preece is in the #8 JR Motorsports car, so he's in top notch equipment.  I expect we'll see the pattern of Cup driver dominance continue.
• The next question is how to build a competitive lineup when Busch eats $15K of your salary cap.  First, there's a good group of drivers/cars starting with Preece at $9,900 and going down to Michael Annett at $7,800.  You should be able to grab two of them based on the best combined value of driver/car strength and starting spot.  My pre-qualifying favorites are Preece and Ryan Sieg.
• A quick note on Sieg, throw out all of his prior statistics.  His team bought essentially brand new equipment from RCR in the off season.  So he's running in very competitive equipment and is hanging with the big boys each week now.  His price is rising, but $8K is still a decent value depending on starting spot.
• On the under $7,000 salary saver end of things, I'll be watching Jeremy Clements, Brandon Brown, Josh Williams, Timmy Hill, Bayley Currey, Matt Mills and Caesar Bacarella.  Especially as you get to the end of the list, the speed will not be there.  But those teams/drivers usually try to finish the race and don't enter with the plan to start and park the car at some point.
• As with last week, be prepared to pivot if, for some reason, a host of Xfinity regulars start at the back of the field.  There should be no reason for that to happen since the weather should be fine.  Only some kind of inspection issue might lead to that outcome.
• Auto Club is very similar to Atlanta in that it is a very rough track that just eats up tires.  I think that's one reason the Cup guys dominate here.  They are better equipped to deal with the extreme tire fall off we'll see on a longer run.  I also mention that because there may be some value in looking back at who ran well in Atlanta a few weeks ago.  It will be a warm sunny day at Auto Club -- not a cold rainy day like we had for the Atlanta race -- but some parallels remain.  Ryan Preece was the only Cup guy in the Atlanta race.  He finished 7th and Christopher Bell dominated the race, leading 142 laps.  Tyler Reddick also ran well.  He finished 5th with a +7 position difference, 30 fastest laps and 9 laps led.

I think the path to a cash game lineup is pretty straight forward this week.  There's a few very tough decisions to make, but the general framework is pretty clear.  Here we go:

• Lock button for Kyle Larson.  He starts 31st, so has the highest floor of anyone and a very high ceiling as well.  Should be near 100% ownership so don't overthink this one in anything other than a contrarian tournament lineup.
• Pick 2 of the group of Clint Bowyer, Daniel Suarez and Ryan Blaney all priced between $7,600-$8,400 on Draft Kings.  Bower (starting 26th) and Suarez (28th) are the safer picks since they start toward the back of the field and offer nothing but upside as they move up through the pack.  They both showed decent (but not great) long run speed in final practice and they both are with the power house Stewart Haas team, so we can expect something like a Top 10-15 finish.  They both struggled in the Fall race here last season, but had solid runs in the 2-3 Phoenix races before that.  Blaney (pole) carries mixed signals.  On the plus side, he's been fast all weekend and was shown as 4th in 10 lap average and 2nd in 20 lap average in final practice.  And the Penske team as a whole is ahead of the pack right now (at least at the 1.5 mile tracks) having won both races since the Daytona 500.  On the down side, in the last 4 Phoenix races, Blaney has not finished higher than 16th despite starting in the Top 5 in 3 of those races.  He started from pole here in the Fall of 2017 and led only 17 laps while scoring only 11 fastest laps.  Blaney started from the pole 3 times last year and led a grand total of only 51 laps in those 3 races.  So he hasn't been a guy that sits on the pole and dominates in the past.  I do think he has a Top 10 car and he's very affordable though.  So he is a real option, but definitely carries a fair amount of risk.  Let's look at a realistic scenario.  Let's say Bowyer and Suarez finish 12th and 14th, respectively.  With a +14 position difference for each, they'd score 46 DK points for Bowyer and 44 DK points for Suarez.  They might pick up a few additional points for fastest laps, but nothing too big to make a big difference.  Now let's give Blaney an 8th place finish.  At -7 position difference, he has 29 DK points.  So he'd have to make up 15-17 points with laps led and fastest laps to match Bowyer and Suarez.  He could do that with 20 laps led and 20 fastest laps.  Certainly doable, but not a certainty.  It's really tough with Blaney.  He could dominate the thing and win you the week or he could slide further back in the field, finish outside the Top 10, and crush your day.  Probably too much risk for me to take in a cash game, but I haven't locked anything just yet.
• Pick 1 of Kyle Busch or Kevin Harvick.  Another agonizing choice that can go either way.  I like Kyle.  In 3 of the last 4 Phoenix races, he's led over 110 laps.  In the last 3 Spring races at Phoenix, he's finished 4th, 3rd and 2nd with no fewer than 75 laps led and 34 fastest laps in the race.  Harvick is amazing here as well.  In fact, he's won 2 of the last 3 Spring races -- including last year (although Kyle had more laps led and more fastest laps last Spring).  In the last 5 races here, Harvick has led a total of 111 laps compared to over 350 laps led for Kyle Busch.  In those same 5 races, Harvick has a total of 103 fastest laps compared to 153 fastest laps for KB.  I do think Harvick will have top end long run speed (he had the best 20 lap average in final practice), but Kyle was not far behind him and may benefit from running the XFinity race in near identical weather and track conditions on Saturday.  It's a coin flip between these two but I'm leaning Kyle's direction by a hair.
• Take 2 salary savers from the group of Michael McDowell, David Ragan, Matt DeBenedetto and Matt Tifft.  I don't expect any of them to be Top 20 cars necessarily, although one or two of them could slide in there depending on attrition.  I'd just want them to hold their spot or move up a few places and not wreck out.  Regardless, they're the best of the cheap group because the others either have inferior equipment/teams (i.e., Houff, Currey, Cassill, Ware and Chastain) or are starting too far forward for my liking (i.e., Ty Dillon, LaJoie and Bubba).
• I can't find a way to get him in my DK cash lineup, but I really like Aric Almirola.  He's strongest at the short tracks and starts 14th so has some position difference upside.  He was also 3rd in 10 lap average in final practice, just a tick behind the leaders.  In his last 3 Phoenix races he's finished 9th, 7th and 4th.  He even had a few Top 10 finishes here in the #43 car.  I think he's going to win here at some point with SHR and it wouldn't shock me if it were this weekend.  In any event, a Top 5 finish is a realistic expectation here with race winning upside.  I will have him in a couple of tournament lineups for sure.

The Fantasy NASCAR question for the Xfinity race this week is whether or not to use Kyle Busch and his $14,900 salary.  I'm leaning yes in all formats.  Kyle has done the Xfinity race at Phoenix four times in the last few seasons.  In three of those four races, he has completely dominated the race.  And I mean COMPLETE and DOMINATION.  It's a 200 lap race and in those three races, he's not only won them going away -- but also led 175 or more of the 200 laps and had by far the greatest number of fastest laps.  If he comes anywhere close to that again, you're looking at 120+ points which is absolutely crazy with the lower lap count in an Xfinity race.

In the one race Kyle did not completely dominate, he still finished 3rd, led 39 laps and had +2 position difference.  That race was won by Brad Keselowski, who had a great car, led many laps and might have dominated even more without an early pit road speeding penalty.  This week, Kyle will be the only Cup Series star in the Xfinity race, so his path to domination is clear.

The one Xfinity regular that might be able to give Kyle a go is Justin Allgaier.  He won this race  in 2017 and finished 2nd in 2018.  In three of the last four races here, he's led 69 or more laps -- including in several races with Cup Series stars crossing over.  He finished 24th here last Fall only because he was the innocent victim of an incident on track in front of him.  He will probably be my lead hedge play against Kyle Busch, but in tournaments only.

Christopher Bell has been awesome so far this year and he won the last Phoenix race last Fall while leading 94 laps.  The catch there is that no Cup Series regulars were in that race.  In two Phoenix races with Cup Series guys in them, Bell has come home 4th both times with a total of 5 (out of 400) laps led.  So, unlike Allgaier, he's not shown an ability to lead laps and run up front at Phoenix when Cup guys are in the race.  Given all that, any exposure to Bell would likely be in a third tournament lineup.

The one scenario where I might consider fading Busch is if you have multiple quality Xfinity regulars starting in the back and the salary savers to pair with Busch are pushed up on the starting grid.  That's very unlikely, but you never know.

So, who are the salary savers to pair with Busch if you go that route?  We'll have to see qualifying spots for sure, but some early week possibilities include Ryan Truex (running in the top notch Jr Motorsports #8 car), Jeremy Clements, Roy Black Jr, Josh Williams, Brandon Brown and Bayley Currey.

I may post an update on Friday night if I see anything of note during Friday's two practice sessions.

     

Been a great weekend so far cashing easily in the Truck and Xfinity Series races.  Going for the weekend sweep on Sunday.  I always try to be completely up front and honest here and, for this race, I have no idea what's going to happen.  Sometimes admitting you don't know something is just what you have to do.  And everything at this point is pure speculation because we have never seen all the cars on the track in race conditions with this new package.  And with the way it looked in final practice, the entire field is going to be bunched up pretty closely, so I'm very concerned about incidents that would normally be 1-2 car deals turning into 7-8 car wrecks.

So my approach for this weekend is going to be to play a smaller bankroll for the week and use something like a super speedway lineup.  We've got 10-12 really good teams and drivers starting from 17th on back.  I am going to fill my lineup with those guys figuring that no one is going to dominate the race and that the way to rack up the points on Sunday will be on position difference points and fastest lap points from guys drafting their way up through the field.  Keselowski, Almirola, Kurt Busch and Ryan Newman are some of my favorite choices.

Lastly, I just don't think there's anything to talk about or analyze with respect to track history, etc.  We've never seen anything like this package run at Las Vegas so past history here means next to nothing.  Likewise any history on 1.5 mile tracks since this is the very first time this package is being run at all.  None of that stuff matters to me this weekend.

Here's a few notes to help you build Xfinity lineups:

• Kyle Busch had excellent long run speed in final practice.  He was nearly a full mile an hour faster then anyone else in his 10 lap average according to nascar.com.  If he starts up front, it's very possible he completely dominates similar to the Truck series race.  I'm inclined to use him in all formats if he does start up front.  In 2016, KB started 1st and dominated the race -- leading 199 of 200 laps on the way to his victory.  He also started 1st in 2017.  That time, he led 48 laps, but finished 7th.
• Some potential salary saving options to pair with Busch (pending starting spot of course) are: Donald Theetge, Matt Mills, Baley Currey, Brandon Brown and Josh Williams.  Williams finished 21st (+8 position difference) and 20th (+11 position difference) here last year.  His DGM teammate last year (Alex Labbe) also finished in the Top 20 in both Vegas races.
• Austin Cindric and Brandon Jones are priced really well and are strong options if you want to use a more balanced lineup.  Justin Allgaier and Tyler Reddick are the best priced top tier drivers.  Allgaier has finished in the Top 4 in the last three Vegas races.  Reddick's long run speed in final practice was second in the field behind Kyle Busch.
• Ryan Sieg has finished in the Top 18 in three of the last four races here.  He ran a strong 11th last week in Atlanta.
• Joey Gase finished in the Top 20 in both Vegas races last year.  But I am concerned about his lack of speed and 29th place finish last week at Atlanta.