dover xfinity

Our Truck targets and predicted Dominators did very well Friday evening.  Let's get an XFinity win as well before getting to the Cup Series on Sunday.  As usual with XFin, lots depends on qualifying spot but there won't be time to update between the end of qualifying and lineup lock.  Here's who I'm focused on:

• The top end guys are really hard to differentiate this week.  Reddick is on a roll and has Top 4 finishes in the last 6 races overall.  But he hasn't been great at Dover.  In 3 XFin races, he has a best finish of 5th place and has led a grand total of 23 laps.  His other top end competitors have fared much better at Dover:
  • Bell won last Fall and led 110 laps.  He started 34th and finished 4th in the Spring.  He didn't have great speed in practice Friday finishing 8th and 13th on the speed chart.
  • Allgaier won last Spring and led 104 laps.  He has Top 5 finishes in 5 of the last 6 Dover races.
  • Custer finished 2nd and led 38 laps last Fall.  He has finishes of 4th, 8th, 13th and 2nd in four Dover races.  He was 2nd in first practice on Friday and edged out Reddick for the top spot of the 10 lap average chart in final practice.
  • Can't go wrong with any of them.  As of now, I really like Bell on shorter tracks like this and tend to prefer his $1,100 salary discount to Reddick.  I also like the combination of Custer's salary, speed in practice and past performance here.
• There is a lot of value in the mid-tier.  Noah Gragson and Zane Smith are under priced at $8,300 and $7,600, respectively.  Both race for one of the top teams in JR Motorsports.  Gragson ran here last year in the Spring and started 2nd and finished 7th. 
  
  • This will be Zane Smith's 4th race in the #8 car this season.  He's improved in each of his prior three races from 24th to 11th and then 6th place finishes.  His last two races were at Bristol and Richmond, so he shouldn't be intimidated by Dover if he survived and improved at those two tracks.  He was very fast in practice on Friday finishing 4th and 5th on the one lap speed chart and 3rd in 10 lap average during final practice.  If he doesn't qualify too far forward, I expect him to be very highly owned given his salary and strong team.
    
  • Riley Herbst is also an option at $8,400.  He's in a top end Joe Gibbs car.  He finished 9th in his only other race this year at Richmond.  In his one other XFin race, he finished 6th at Iowa last year.
• On the salary saver end, I'm focused on Ronnie Bassett Jr,, Matt Mills and Baley Currey in the under $5,500 category.  Bassett has two career XFin races -- both in this #90 car this season.  He finished 32nd at Phoenix and 15th at Texas.  Unlike some of the other cars in this salary range, we know the #90 car is part of a decent team and will run the whole race barring an accident or mechanical failure.  Matt Mills in the #5 is also a reliable bet to try to run the entire race.  He recently finished 21st at Bristol with +10 position difference for his best non-super speedway run of the season.  Currey is a bit of a mystery.  I'm still scared of the three race stretch in March when this team didn't finish more than 30 laps in any one of those races.  I'd only use him as a last resort if the starting spot is way back.