darlington xfinity

For cash games, it's a stars and scrubs week for sure. We've got a number of really good high end plays and some palatable cheaper options to go with them. Here are the guys I'm focusing on:

• Denny Hamlin - Virtually a must play at only $10,400. The #54 car has been awesome most of the year and this is a great track for Hamlin. Starting 14th, he offers position difference upside to go with the likelihood of leading laps and running fastest laps. A sky high ceiling.
• Austin Cindric, Tyler Reddick, Brandon Jones and Austin Dillon are all really good plays as well.
  • Cindric is the safest of this group because he's the highest quality driver in a top end car. He hasn't been great at Darlington, so I wouldn't expect a lot of dominator points, but a Top 10 is a pretty safe bet.
  • I'd probably put Reddick second in this group. He's well known for running really fast up against the wall at high tire wear tracks (think Darlington and Homestead). He's in the #23 Our Motorsports car, which has shown good speed when a good driver is in it. Not as safe a bet as Cindric for a Top 10, but he should get there as long as he doesn't have any reliability issues with the car.
  • Dillon is third for me because he's in the #31 for Jordan Anderson and we just can't be sure how good the car will be. You've got to figure this is essentially and RCR prepared car because Dillon would probably not be driving it unless that was the case. So it will probably be OK, but it worries me that this car has faded and had some problems the last month or so. For now, I've got Dillon slightly over Jones. 
  • Jones is last in this group for me and I'm very reluctant to use him in cash games because he always seem to have something go wrong. That said, in the last two Darlington races, he's finished 3rd and 1st -- so the upside is there. So is the risk. I do like that Gibbs is always fast here and we know the cars are as reliable as any in this series.
• On the cheap side, here are the guys:
  • B.J. McLeod - He's in the #90 for DGM this week. This is same team that runs Josh Williams and Alex Labbe, so we know these can be Top 20 cars. And I love that B.J. is a very experienced driver who knows how to take car of his car. Starting 39th, you have a super safe floor and quite a bit of position difference upside. He's not real cheap, but he doesn't even need to max out his ceiling to easily hit 5x value here.
  • Ryan Ellis - Ran well here earlier this year with a surprising 16th place finish. The #99 isn't super fast, but it's generally pretty reliable and I feel pretty confident with Ellis. He's not going to repeat a Top 20, but I think something in the 25th-30th range is a reasonable projection.
  • The last spot here is tough.
    
    • I could see a case for Carson Ware or Kyle Weatherman, but the Mike Harmon cars have not run well here and you need tires, which they might not have. Although I doubt Ware would run over there unless he's bringing money to run it full. But Ware also has no experience at Darlington, which is concerning.
    • I could see going super cheap with Mason Massey. He starts up in 26th, but he's in the Rick Ware car, which is generally OK in the Xfinity Series. Massey is decent, but has only one race here. The car should be good enough to move up a couple of spots and he really is too cheap.
    • Lastly, maybe a guy like Jesse Little just to keep the car pointed straight and pass the guys who wreck out. Don't love it, but it's probably safer than everyone else I've mentioned for this last spot.