xfinity charlotte roval

First off, I'm happy to back. Had to take a few weeks off because I simply have not had enough time to properly prepare for the last couple of races. I'm ready to get back at it and bring home a solid finish this season.  So let's get to it.

I'm expecting a pretty wild Xfinity race on Saturday. As we saw in all practices on Friday, there's not a lot of runoff room around the track so any off track adventures usually lead to heavy damage and could be race ending.  We've got 67 laps scheduled, so a pretty limited amount of laps led and fastest laps points are at stake.  We'd love to have someone score a few of those, but our main focus really has to be on raw finishing position and getting guys who will move up from their starting spot and not go backwards.

Based on recent road course performance and practice times from Friday, here is who I am most interested in heading into qualifying and the race on Saturday:

• Austin Cindric -- He's been the best road racer this year and I really don't get why his salary is under $10K.  2nd fastest in both practices and I really like that he did a longer 10 lap run in final practice.
  
• Justin Allgaier and Tyler Reddick -- This is really a salary thing here.  I'm thinking one of them will qualify a little further back then expected and will be a solid position difference play.  Reddick has been sneaky good at the road courses this year with finishes of 6th, 4th and 3rd.  He ran 6th and 4th in practice on Friday.  Allgaier was the man at road courses last year, but has fallen off a bit this year.  Still very solid and good choice if he qualifies outside the Top 10.  To be clear, I have no problem with Bell and Allmendinger but they might end up being too pricey for the type of return you get with only 67 laps being run.  If one of them starts further back then expected, then absolutely go up and grab them.  My main point is that you might be better off saving a bit unless some real good value opens up in qualifying.
  
• Chase Briscoe -- Rock solid road course guy and won here last year.
  
• Alex Labbe -- Always like this guy and love him on a road course.  Was Top 8 in both practice sessions. $7800 is a bit much though unless he has decent position difference upside.
• Will Rodgers -- Strong salary saver at $6,500.  6th in final practice.  Started 22nd and finished 12th at Mid Ohio earlier this year.
• JJ Yeley -- An extreme salary saver at $5,200.  He's in the #78 car for BJ McLeod's team.  This is NOT a start and park team. This is Vinnie Miller's normal team and their MO is to be a bit off the pace, take no chances and finish every race.  (Ignore his poor finishes at road courses earlier this year because all those were in the #38 car for RSS Racing which often does not even attempt to finish races.)  JJ is a veteran and accomplished road course racer.  He started in this #78 car last week at Richmond and went from 34th to a 21st place finish.  For $5,200, it's a free square unless he qualifies so well that it brings too much downside risk if something goes wrong.