xfinity road america

UPDATE IN BOLD

All I care about is finishing position and position difference here. There are so few laps and so many different pit strategies available that none of the normal dominator stuff matters much to me. Here are some of the best position difference targets I see:

• AJ Allmendinger - Duh. Just use him in cash games and don't waste any thought on it.
• Preston Pardus - Another duh for me. He looked really good on the Indy road course earlier this year and he has Road America experience. With no practice before the race, I really want guys who know Road America and did the Indy road course already this year. Pardus fits those criteria.
• Josh Bilicki - Similar to Pardus. Bilicki is approaching road course ringer status. He finished 23rd at the Indy road course, but was running higher up before getting hit and damaged through no fault of his own. 
• Myatt Snider - Another similar profile. Ran 16th at the Indy road course and got a lot of road course experience in Europe last year.

Austin Cindric probably wins this race and should lead a bunch of laps early. With only 45 laps though, can he lead enough and run enough fast laps to outscore the position difference guys starting behind him?

UPDATE -- So this race has some funky, experimental pit road rules that are really going to change pit strategy. They're doing this because it's a stand alone event and they don't have the Cup Series pit crew guys in town to man the Xfinity pit crews. Normally, teams looking to win the race would pit for fuel and tires before each stage break because they stay on the lead lap and then pass all the cars that stayed out to get stage points when those cars pit at the stage break. I don't that works with the new pit rules in place this week.

Here are some key points as I understand them --

• (1) If you pit under green, you cannot change tires (unless you have a flat or damage). Fuel only is all that you can do if you pit under green. There is also a 60 second MINIMUM time that you must stay on pit road if you pit under green.
• (2) During stage breaks and when the caution comes out, the running order is frozen at the time of caution. Teams can then come down pit road to either change tires OR fuel the car -- but not both. And you can't lose spots on pit road. The cars will leave in the order they entered. If a team wants to change tires AND fuel the car, they will need to pit a second time during the caution period. Any cars that pit twice under the caution would start behind all the cars that pitted only once. (For a non-stage break caution, NASCAR can declare it a Quickie Caution in which case teams would have only one opportunity to pit at which time they would have to choose between changing tires OR fueling the car.)
  
• This is going to be a mess and I'm not sure what most teams will do. I think the best strategy for a team trying to win the race is to pit for fuel before each of the stage breaks. Those cars could then change tires during the stage break and restart in front of any car who hadn't pitted before the stage break and needs to stop twice during the caution period. I think that strategy makes the most sense for everyone except those really needing stage points to make the playoffs. (Herbst, Sieg, Brown, Clements, Hemric and Snider are all guys hovering near the points cut off line for the playoffs.) They will likely stay out to get their stage points and then pit twice during the stage breaks. They would then restart behind everyone who tool fuel under green and only changed tires during the stage break.
  

I think this could bump up Austin Cindric because he should get the lead early and I think he can keep it most of the race if he follows the strategy right. He will give up a few laps led if he does a fuel stop before the stage break, but he should then cycle back to the lead for the restart. But, having said that, I do expect we'll see some creative strategy plays that could throw everything off and result in an oddball leader for a portion of the race.