Las Vegas Trucks

Getting back close to normal on the COVID front. Thanks for all the well wishes. Still going to be a bit shorter today.

It seems to me there are a few badly mispriced trucks here --

• J.H. Nemechek $10,400 -- He beat Kyle Busch here earlier this year. He starts on the pole and has the best pit box. He's won three out of five races at 1.5 mile tracks this season and finished 3rd and 5th in the other two. A win and he's in the championship race. I think we'll see his best effort here and $10.4k is too cheap for the safety of a Top 5 finish and the upside of leading 100 laps and crushing the field.
• Christian Eckes $7,300 -- WTF? This is the the #98 ThorSport truck. The worst finish for this truck at the 1.5 mile tracks this season is 11th. Eckes has been in it three times at 1.5 mile tracks and finished 9th (at Las Vegas!), 4th and 11th. He starts 15th, so has pretty easy +4/5 position difference. Just crazy that he's cheaper then guys like Derek Kraus and Drew Dollar who consistently wreck themselves and others.
• Tanner Gray $7,700 -- I get that Gray can be erratic and scary to have in cash games. But he starts 29th in a truck that can easily get into the Top 10-12 on speed. His worst finish at the 1.5 mile tracks this season is 22nd and he has two Top 12 finishes -- including a 12th earlier this season at Las Vegas. And he finished 8th and 3rd with the same team last year at Las Vegas. Starting 29th, there is +20 position difference upside here with reliable equipment. Again, this seems crazy to me. If there were ever going to be a time to buy in on Gray in cash games, this is it.
• Sheldon Creed $10,900 -- He's actually pretty fairly priced considering how sketchy he's been at the 1.5 mile tracks this season. But he's brought his "A Game" for the playoffs just like last year. I do think he'll run well and he gives you some + position difference upside as well from the 9th starting spot. If JHN doesn't win on Friday, Creed is the next most likely guy to advance on to the championship race.

Let's talk about a few other guys who seem tempting --

• Grant Enfinger $10,000 -- He's in the #9, which is maybe a 12th-15th place truck at best. He was able to squeeze out a surprising 7th here earlier this year in this truck, but also has 14th and 17th place finishes at 1.5 mile tracks. He might inch across the 5x target return here, but I just don't see the value or upside. Brett Moffitt has a very similar profile for almost $1k less.
• Dylan Lupton $8,300 -- He starts 36th and is running for Reaume Brothers. But this is part of newly formed partnership that is supposed to up the game for this organization. It's their first joint effort. All that is awfully scary. Can they run in the Top 20? Maybe so. But is that really enough? And without practice, we really have no idea what kind of speed or reliability they're going to have. It's not like the Reaume team has good notes on how to set up a fast truck here. That's just not their business model. So we'd just be guessing.

Cheap guys I'd be willing to consider:

• Danny Bohn - could get you +6-8 position difference if all goes well
• Bret Holmes - if he can just finish, he'll give a good return
• Howie Disavino - so cheap, just don't wreck