charlotte trucks

The biggest lineup question is what to do with Kyle Busch and his $15,000 salary. The easy and correct answer is play him. He's actually still under priced by a lot.

In his last six Trucks races (5 last year and 1 earlier this year), Kyle won all six races, led an average of 106 laps, ran an average of 58 fastest laps and scored an average of 103 Draft Kings points. So Kyle is averaging a 6.8x return on his salary -- which puts him way above the 5x return we are really looking for. Simply put, he's still very under priced and really carries a salary value of $20,000 or more.

Is there any argument to not use him? Yes. There are a few things to have some concern about.

• (1) Chase Elliott is in this race as part of the "bounty" Kevin Harvick threw out there for a Cup regular to beat Kyle in a Trucks race. And Kyle just accidentally wrecked Chase earlier this week when Chase may have been in position to win at Darlington. Could Chase decide this is the right time to even the score? Possibly, but he would have to get close enough to hit him and I don't think he will. To a lesser extent I've got some concern about Ross Chastain. He an Busch raced each other hard in the Xfinity race on Monday night. I will be very nervous when Kyle is around Chastain in the Trucks race.
• (2) There are a lot of inexperienced and marginal drivers in the field. They do stupid things sometimes and you never know who might get collected when they do stupid things. Plus this is the first Trucks race since March and many of these guys haven't been on track since then. So it might get dicey at times -- think end of the Xfinity race. But, this is always a risk and totally out of our control. It can impact Busch just as easily as it can impact the alternates we would build around like Elliott, Chastain or Brett Moffitt.

Simply put, the risk of fading Busch and hoping he gets unlucky is much greater than the risk of actually using him.

Where to go with the rest of your roster? There are two approaches.

First, you can spend up for another top tier guy like Brett Moffitt or Ross Chastain -- both of whom should finish in or near the Top 10 with +15 position difference. But that leaves you with only about $6k per driver for your last four spots and you're really going to need a few inexperienced drivers on underfunded teams to come through for you in that scenario. I respect what they're trying to do, but I'd rather not risk my cash game money on guys like Bryan Dauzat and Codie Rohrbaugh.

Second, my preferred approach, is to go down the salary schedule a bit and build a well rounded team with guys on strong teams (GMS, Niece and DGR-Crosley) and guys on under funded teams who already have raced in the Cup Series or Xfinity Series in the last two weeks. I think that's the safest way to approach things in setting the highest floor while still having a similar upside to the Busch + Moffitt/Chastain build.