talladega rewind and dover notes

Talladega Rewind
The approach and driver targets we talked about for Talladega did well and should have put you into the money last week.  However, this was an odd Talladega race in that not as many drivers starting toward the back finished all that well.  Here are some things that made this a unique Talladega race:

• The Top 5 finishers all started in the Top 10.  Going back four races, nothing close to that had happened.  In fact, no other race during that time had 5 drivers starting in the Top 10 even finishing in the Top 12 -- let alone finishing 1st - 5th.  In Oct. 2017, only 4 Top 10 starters finished in the Top 12.  In April 2017 and October 2016, it was also 4 Top 10 starters finishing in the Top 12.  And in May 2016, only 3 Top 10 starters finished in the Top 12.  So, generally speaking, Top 10 starters fared much better this Talladega race than they had over the last two seasons.
• Likewise, drivers who started 20th or worse generally fared worse than they did historically.  Last week, only 2 drivers starting 20th or worse finished in the Top 12.  In Oct. 2017, 6 drivers starting 20th or worse finished in the Top 12.  In April 2017 and Oct 2016, 5 drivers starting 20th or worse finished in the Top 12.  And in May 2016, 4 drivers starting 20th or worse finished in the Top 12.  So, it really broke with recent history to have only 2 drivers do this on Sunday.
• It will be interesting to see how the Fall Talladega race plays out and whether we are seeing a change take place in how we should expect these races to play out.  I suspect this was an outlier and we'll see more "normal" results in the Fall, but we shall see.

Dover Notes
Here's our first set of Dover notes:

• 400 laps this weekend, so on DK in particular, we'll be back to looking for a Dominator who can rack up laps led and fastest laps points.  That is less of an issue on FD.
• Also back to a traditional weekend schedule.  There is a 50 minute practice and qualifying on Friday, two 50 minute practice sessions on Saturday and the race on Sunday.  We'll have full updates late Friday and late Saturday.
• Chase Elliott has finished in the Top 5 all four times he has raced at Dover in his Cup career.  He led 138 laps last Fall.
  
• Martin Truex had 3 straight Top 5 finishes at Dover.  He has finished in the Top 10 in 7 of the last 8 Dover races.  And he has led 100+ laps in 3 of the last 6 Dover races.
  
• Kyle Larson finished 5th and led 137 laps last Spring.   He finished 2nd and led 241 laps in the Fall.  He was dominant and did everything except win.
  
• Jimmie Johnson has 11 career Cup wins at Dover, including last Spring.  Although he won last Spring, he led only 7 laps.  In the Fall, he finished 3rd and led 5 laps.  He was once considered the master of Dover, but he hasn't truly dominated a race there since 2014.
  
• Kyle Busch has started in the Top 3 in 4 straight Dover races -- including one pole.  He won the Dover race last Fall.  In the last three seasons, he has done great in the Fall Dover race (finishing 1st, 2nd and 2nd) but been terrible in the Spring race (finishing 16th, 30th and 36th).  That could be random noise.  Or it could be that they purposely approach the Spring race trying to experiment knowing that the Fall race is a critical race in the middle of the playoffs.
  
• Jamie McMurray finished 9th and 7th last year.  The two Chip Ganassi cars really were good there last year.