kansas cup

It was a frustrating Saturday. Wasn't a total bust, but got awful sick of seeing my guys run into in both the Trucks and Xfinity races. Let's hope we can stay clean on Sunday,

I'm going to start with $7k and under targets, which are pretty obvious:

• Matt Kenseth - Pretty consistently in the Top 20 at the 1.5 mile tracks this year. 18th, 17th, 18th in the last three of those this season. Very safe starting 30th.
• Ryan Newman - Pretty similar to Kenseth and should be fighting for a Top 20. Also real safe starting 28th and fairly priced.
• J. H. Nemechek - Can be risky in general, but has done well at the 1.5 mile tracks this year. He's finished almost all of those races right around the 18th-22nd range and has only one really bad finish (36th at Kentucky). Real good floor and upside starting 32nd.
• Corey LaJoie - If you really need to save, this is the cheapest option I'd play. He shouldn't go backwards and might get you a few spots.
• Michael McDowell has also run pretty consistently at these tracks and might gain a few spots.

Mid-Tier

• I don't see many good options here. Can consider Tyler Reddick, Austin Dillon and Aric Almirola, but none are really safe. Reddick and Dillon have several Top 10s or better at the 1.5 mile tracks, but also have some really bad outcomes. Almirola had one of the better cars at these tracks mid-season, but has tailed off quite a bit.

Upper Tier

• Kyle Busch is a really strong play. All the JGR cars were good here the last race and Kyle has a lot of + position difference to offer starting 20th. It's been a frustrating year and Kyle isn't fighting for the championship, so does he lose interest? Or does he just relax and go out and win his first race of the year?
• I'm not convinced on Chase Elliott. Among other things, we have an early competition caution where teams could choose to change only two tires for track position and mess up the running order. And he's got one of the best starters in the series - Joey Logano - right along side to start the race and a lot of good cars in the first few rows. I do think he'll have sizable ownership, though, so there's risk in fading him.
• My top two plays are Denny Hamlin and Kevin Harvick. There's just not a whole lot more to say about them. Either or both have really strong cars every single week and I wouldn't be surprised to see them both lead on Sunday at some point.
• Ryan Blaney has been fast at the 1.5 mile tracks, but he's just too inconsistent for me to really want to use him in a cash game setting.