final charlotte update

Here's my final update and thoughts about where I'm going with a cash lineup:

• Harvick remains a lock in cash games.  You can fade him in an alternative lineup if doing multiple entries in a large tournament, but I think you have to lock him in otherwise in both cash and tournaments.
  
• I'm still torn on Kyle Busch and Truex.  My feeling is that we don't see a true dominator on Sunday and that we have 4-5 guys who lead 50+ laps.  I'm thinking that way mostly because we saw a number of other cars look real strong in practice -- including Eric Jones, Kyle Larson, Denny Hamlin and Joey Logano.  Added to the group of Harvick, Busch and Truex, this gives us at least 7 guys who could lead a chunk of laps.  Given that, I'm leaning towards Truex over Busch.  If it looked like KB was ahead of the field, I would be all in.  But I'm not seeing that in the numbers here.  I have no doubt he can be one of the guys to lead 50+ laps, I just don't see him leading 150+ laps and blowing away the field.  Truex has a slight edge in my mind because he, too, can be one of the guys to lead 50+ laps and he has so much more position difference potential since he starts 15th.  The deciding factor is just how good Truex has been the last three 600s.  He's led the most laps and had the most fastest laps in each of the three races.   By contrast, KB has never won a Cup race at Charlotte and has not led more than 65 laps in a Charlotte Cup race since 2011.  All that said, it's in no way wrong to take KB in a cash game, and even I will have him on multiple tournament teams to cover the chance that he does dominate.
• At the salary saver end, I like Allmendinger, Kahne and McDowell the best -- and in that order.  I think they offer the best combination of past performance at Charlotte and being with more reliable teams in better equipment as compared to DiBenedetto and Cassill.
• I have to add Eric Jones to the list of driver targets based on his final practice.  On the 15 lap average chart, he was at 29.405 seconds per lap and the next closest was Kyle Larson at 29.625 per lap.  So he was beating the field by an average of .2 seconds each lap over a longer run.  Mike Joy on Fox commented that Jones did a 19 lap run and that, if he had done one more lap, he would have led the 20 lap average chart as well.  He starts 4th, which makes me a little nervous about position difference downside.  But, on the flip side of that, it gives him a better chance to get to the lead and run fastest laps out front of the field.  I'm willing to use him in cash games and he's a great tournament option even if you choose not to have him in a cash lineup.
• My alternative to Jones is either Chase Elliott or Clint Bowyer.  I doubt either can get to the lead unless they employ some alternative pit strategy.  But, I think both of them can bring it home in the 8th-14th range.  In that spot, they would bring you solid points plus 10 or so position difference bonus points.  The downside is that they're more expensive then Jones, so you would have to run DiBenedetto or Cassill in one of your salary saver spots.

Some other tournament only targets that I'll be including in tournament lineups are:  Kyle Busch, Kyle Larson, Joey Logano, Ryan Blaney and Kurt Busch.

Some guys I am purposely avoiding in all formats:  Ryan Newman (solid track record, but starting 6th so will lose positions); Alex Bowman (bad track record, bad practice, unlikely to gain much ground from 27th starting spot); Matt Kenseth (starts 17th, but very unlikely to finish in the Top 20); Ty Dillon (starts 20th and will lose ground); and Ross Chastain (starts 25th and will lose ground).

​Good luck everyone!