gateway trucks race

200 miles, 160 laps under the lights at Gateway on Saturday night.  It's a big hit for Johnny Sauter to be suspended for this race because he's finished in the Top 4 in all seven Truck Series races at Gateway.  It's by far his best track for average finishing position and he's been by far the best Truck Series regular at this track. 

Here are some other notes to keep in mind as you build your lineups Saturday evening:

• Two of the last three races here have been caution filled.  Both the 2016 and 2018 races saw 9 caution flags and average green flag runs in the 10-11 lap range.
• We've seen high attrition rates in each of the last three races here.  In 2016, only 23 of 32 trucks were running at the end of the race.  In 2017, it was only 18 of 30 running at the end.  And, in 2018, we had 23 of 32 running at the end.  Like we said at Iowa, this opens up opportunities for slow running teams to have good days simply by running the entire race -- even if they finish multiple laps down.  Jennifer Jo Cobb is a great example of this.  She started 32nd last week and may have been the slowest truck out there, but she climbed up to 26th simply by outlasting the trucks that went out of the race early.  The more trucks that do this, the more opportunity there is for the Cobb's and Norm Benning's of the world.
• Christian Eckes ($7,100) and Chandler Smith ($7,800) are way, way too cheap and should be very highly owned.  Both are in top end Kyle Busch Motorsports trucks this week.
  • We saw what Smith can do last week in his first Truck Series race.  He led the first 55 laps, had 40 fastest laps and was really driving away from the field in the beginning.  He ran into trouble with a radio malfunction and pit road penalty, but he showed good patience working back through the field to finish 9th.
  • Eckes has not been in the truck since the season opener at Daytona.  He ran the race last year at Gateway.  In that race, he started second and led 34 laps with 13 fastest laps before getting taking out in a wreck that was not his fault and finishing 28th.  In total, he ran four short track races last year in a KBM truck.  We already covered Gateway, where he finished 28th.  He ran 8th at Iowa, 9th at Martinsville and 9th at Phoenix.  Pretty damn good for your first four Truck Series races.  He'll be in the #51 truck with ace crew chief Rudy Fugle calling the shots.  There's no way he should be priced at $7,100 below the likes of Natalie Decker or Tyler Ankrum (running Joe Nemechek equipment).  Expect huge ownership here.
• Myatt Snider is also too cheap at $8,600.  He's subbing for Sauter in the #13 truck.  Snider was in this truck full time last year (although with a different crew chief), so he should be able to step right in without much fall off.  He's also done very well at short tracks like this with long straightaways and slow, flat turns.  There's Gateway and Martinsville that are like this.  Last year, Snider ran 4th at Gateway and 6th and 3rd in the two Martinsville races.  He also ran at Martinsville earlier this year in an extra Thorsport truck and finished 6th.  So that's four Top 6 finishes in four races on this type of track.
• Kyle Benjamin could be under priced as well at $7,600.  He's very talented and in solid Niece Motorsports equipment.  His "problem" so far this season has been qualifying too well.  Roughly speaking, this is probably a 10th-15th place truck, but he's been qualifying in the Top 10.  If he qualifies further back, he could become a real value.  Of note, he ran a DGR truck twice last season at Martinsville.  In the first race, he led 74 laps and finished 2nd.  In the second race, he led 6 laps and finished 5th.  So he's got the talent to do very well at this type of track.  
• I still think Austin Hill is a tad under priced at $9k.  If not for the intentional wrecking and damage caused by Sauter, Hill would have nailed a Top 10 finish and hit the 40 point DK mark for the fifth straight race.  It will all come down to starting position, but I would have no issue using him over the group ahead of him (Creed, Burton and Gilliland) if the situation is right.  I'm probably a little higher then most on Hill, so he probably won't be very highly owned in cash games unless he qualifies very poorly.  Because of that, he's probably more of a tournament only guy if you want to stay on the more conservative end in cash games.
• At the top end of the salary range, Brett Moffit has done his best work this season at the short tracks.  He ran 3rd at Martinsville, 2nd at Dover and 2nd at Iowa last weekend.  I like his chances with Sauter out.
• I don't know what to make of Ross Chastain after that situation last week.  Re-watching the race, I could see the front of his truck seemed to really hug the pavement better then any other truck.  I'm thinking a Top 5 run is likely but another dominating or race winning run is not.  He's now priced way up, so will probably be a tournament only play.
• With some of the values we already discussed, I don't think we'll have to dig too deep into the salary punt plays this week.  One guy sticking out to me is Anthony Alfredo.  He'll be in the #17 truck for David Gilliland's team.  He's run 5 races with the DGR team this year and done reasonably well -- although he's been outperformed by Tyler Ankrum and Raphael Lessard.  Overall, this #17 team is very solid.  They've had four Top 10 finishes in the last six races.  And two Top 10 finishes in the three short track races this year.  I think he's the best upside play of the group from Natalie Decker at $7,200 on down.
• As we covered with Tyler Ankrum last week, he is not running with his regular team (DGR) this week.  He's in a Joe Nemechek truck because he has to start each race to remain playoff eligible.  Last week in Nemechek equipment, Ankrum ran only a handful of practice laps and then retired 17 laps into the race.  Keep an eye on practice laps run, but I'm expecting more of the same since sponsorship and funding is lacking here.