COTA

Back at it here for COTA. I'll have some Truck and Xfinity notes late Friday night and Cup late Saturday night. Good luck this weekend!

Cup (posted Saturday night) - ​QUICK SUNDAY NOTE - AJ AND SVG SEEM REALLY POPULAR SO I'D BOOST THEM UP IN CASH GAMES OVER SOMEONE LIKE BLANEY.
Not going to lie - It was a rough Saturday with the last lap penalties. I was sitting on small wins in both races at the checkered flag only to fall off a cliff when Matt Crafton and SVG were given 30 second post-race penalties for cutting corners on the last lap. NASCAR really needs to look at how to best police cutting corners because the penalty seems way too harsh and it seems totally arbitrary to allow them to cut every corner on the course except through the 3-4-5 complex. On to my Cup race notes:

• Joey Logano is my #1 play for cash games given the combination of price and starting spot. His practice times weren't great, but they were Top 20 times and if he can back that up in the race, he'll easily hit 5x his salary.
• Michael McDowell is in a similar position. He's finished 13th or better in all three COTA races and has finished 13th or better in nine of the last twelve road/street course races overall. He's fairly priced and has a lot of upside from the 27th starting spot.
• Ryan Blaney is another one starting 28th. He threw up a few decent practice laps and is probably just too cheap for where he starts.
• There are so many great cars and drivers starting at the front. My issue with them is who to play? Byron, Gibbs, and Bell were arguably the most impressive cars in practice and Reddick absolutely blew away the field here last year and was just fine in practice as well. I have no problem using any of them. But we saw in the Xfinity race how quickly it can go South for even a dominant car (Allmendinger and SVG).
  • All this leaves me thinking the best play up top for cash games might be Kyle Larson. Starts 15th, so gives some position difference upside and was nearly as strong in practice. It's a really tough call on this one and there's no one right answer between these guys.
  • Also I'm not going to argue with anyone who wants to use AJ or SVG again on Sunday. They're both damn good at this kind of racing. But I think it'd leave them for tournaments given the numerous other options that might be a bit more reliable.
• Chris Buescher has just been crazy consistent at road courses. He's finished 11th or better in eleven of the last twelve road/street course races. He's probably outperforming his speed there a little bit but whatever he's doing is right.
• Alex Bowman is another solid play considering that he's finished 3rd, 2nd and 8th in his three COTA races. He had some very strong practice laps so is a solid bet for another good finish here on Sunday.
• Brad Keselowski, Eric Jones and Noah Gragson are all tempting. They are all so cheap and start so far back that they can really only go forward. But all of their practice times were pretty bad and I really don't see any of them challenging to break to the Top 20. I would definitely stay away in tournaments given the lack of upside.
• Ross Chastain and Todd Gilliland are two guys would will probably be lower owned that I might be overweight on in tournaments.

Trucks (posted Friday night)

• Ben Rhodes is the #1 play in all formats. He's got a very solid road course history, including Top 10 finishes in all three COTA races. With how few laps there are in the race here, the position difference points are even more crucial and Rhodes should be 20+ in that department.
• Connor Zilisch is the real deal obviously. He's off to an awesome start in the IMSA series and was easily the most impressive on Friday, setting multiple track records. Something really major would have to go wrong for him to not lead laps and finish in the Top 5 on Saturday. A bargain at $9,200.
• Rajah Caruth is badly mispriced IMO at only $7,200. There's risk starting 11th, but he looked strong in practice running laps clearly inside the Top 10 on speed. He mentioned learning a lot from his teammate Zilisch and sim work for the road courses on Friday. 
• Tyler Ankrum has finished 3rd, 7th and 4th in his three COTA races and he's arguably in the best truck of his career. He has some position difference upside starting 12th and his practice lap times put him squarely in the Top 6-8 trucks.
• Matt Crafton, Marco Andretti and Jake Garcia are all seemingly safe floor plays with some room to move forward. There are some warning flags though and I don't see much upside for any of them. Crafton has never been strong at the road courses and wasn't great in practice. Andretti was pretty far off the pace in practice and is in a really questionable truck. And Garcia, too, hasn't been his best at road courses. His practice times were well off the pace as well. If I had to choose, I'd go Crafton, Garcia and then Andretti.
• Ty Dillon and Stefan Parsons are two guys in the same general price range starting a little further forward that had much better practice sessions on Friday.
• My favorite tournament plays are probably Corey Heim and Jack Hawksworth. If Zilisch doesn't dominate, it will likely be Heim -- or both. Hawksworth is a very accomplished Lexus driver in the IMSA series and probably has more road course laps then the rest of the field combined. It wouldn't shock me to see him get stronger as the race goes on and contend for a Top 3 finish.

​Xfinity (posted Friday night)

• How could you not like the guys at the top. Kyle Larson, Ty Gibbs, Shane Van Gisbergen and AJ Allmendinger are all awesome, were all great in practice and are all great plays. Here are two things that stick with me on this one -- (1) there is no driver I trust more to bring home a Top 5 in a Xfinity road course race then AJ Allmendinger; and (2) SVG got faster every lap he ran in practice and ended the session with the fastest lap run by anyone.
• Anthony Alfredo looks like a really safe PD play to me. He got a flat tire before he even ran a practice lap but they fully expect the car to be ready to go for Saturday. He said he just did a shakedown lap during qualifying to make sure everything was OK on the car. He's finished 13th and 16th in two COTA races and I'd look for another Top 20 here.
• Riley Herbst and JH Nemechek weren't necessarily mispriced coming into the weekend, but they probably are now given their starting positions. Neither is going to win or even really compete for a Top 5, but a 8th-12th place finish would be a great return for their price. I'd be fine fading them in tournaments because I think the upside is somewhat limited, but they are really strong cash game plays to me.
• Alex Labbe is a really good road course racer, but I question the quality of the car.
• Ryan Sieg tends to find a way to finish better then he runs at the road courses, but he is on the risky side.
• Kyle Weatherman is a really strong punt play who has had some surprisingly solid road course finishes in lesser cars.
• I like Ed Jones as a cheaper play in tournaments only. Ed has a lot of road course experience from IMSA and IndyCar and is running in a solid Sam Hunt Racing car this weekend. Similar to SVG, he got faster with each practice lap and ended up running a really competitive lap to end the session.