This weekend the Cup series heads to Las Vegas to kick off the second round of the playoffs. This is going to be an important race for many as the next two races in this round are at Talladega and the Charlotte Roval. Those two races can basically be treated as wild cards because so much can happen in both those races as we have seen in the last couple seasons. Vegas is a steep 1.5 mile track that they visited prior to the Covid break. Teams have data that they can use along with other tracks that are similar to Vegas to set their cars up on Sunday. As far as strategy, I will be looking at 2-3 dominator builds on Draftkings. Personally I expect to see a similar racing to what we have seen all weekend. The racing should be good, restarts a little crazy but I don’t think we will see a lot of cautions which means track position will be very important at the beginning of a run.
Kevin Harvick (DK $11,700 FD $13,500)
This weekend, your builds begin and end with Harvick for the majority of them. Harvick has been on another level lately and is coming off a dominant perfomance at Bristol. At Vegas, Harvick has shown his dominance here even if it doesn’t always show up in the final standings. Harvick has led multiple laps in the last five races here and won here back in March of 2018. I expect him to be a force to be reckoned with on Sunday and should be one of the most popular plays not only in cash games but in gpps as well.
Martin Truex Jr (DK $10,600 FD $13,200)
When we go to a track that starts in the daylight and ends at night, we have to talk about Truex. Well that seems to just be thing we joke about, the results really do correlate. Set aside that narrative and look at the track history, Truex is one of the top drivers in recent races here. He has won here in two of the last six races including this race last season. He has also led over 30 laps in 3 of those 6 races. Since Truex struggled at Bristol last week, he starts from the 11th position and has some place differential upside this week as well.
Joey Logano (DK $10,300 FD $12,800)
Debated on whether I was going to write up Brad or Joey this week. Brad does have some place differential upside starting 12th this week and has great finish position history here. However the discount on Draftkings with Joey and his track history of dominance and finish position intrigue me just a little more. I think Brad is a great play on Fanduel though. Joey won here earlier this season using strategy and staying out when everyone pitted and hanging on. He also won the spring race here last year as well. Whats even more impressive is the fact that Joey has led 40 or more laps here in seven of the last nine races and has a career average finish of 8th.
Ryan Blaney (DK $9,100 FD $11,500)
Blaney is coming off a weekend where he was eliminated from the playoffs after having a subpar performance at Bristol and quick frankly a subpar performance in round 1 in general. However this round would have been one of his best rounds had he got through. Not only is Blaney really good at Talladega and the Roval but he also has great track history at Las Vegas. Blaney has an average finish of 10th here over his career and has had a fast car at 1.5 mile tracks. He starts 15th and has the possibility of grabbing dominator points with fastest laps and also has some place differential upside as well.
Ricky Stenhouse Jr (DK $7,800 FD $7,000)
Stenhouse had a miserable showing last week at Bristol no thanks to Jimmie Johnson yet again. This weekend Rick starts 33rd and is probably the safest play this weekend as weird as it is to say that. His floor is really safe and if you look at his track history he has top 20 upside on Sunday. He finished 3rd here and led 30 laps earlier this season due to some bold strategy played by his crew chief. Ricky is a solid play on all sites especially on SuperDraft where he has a 1.55 multiplier.
Alex Bowman (DK $7,300 FD $9,000)
Bowman is underpriced this weekend and is a play that could very well be part of a winning lineup this week. He starts 8th so his pd upside is limited but if he can accumulate some fastest laps and finish inside the top 10 at this price he could crush. He finished 6th here last fall and 13th here earlier this season. The speed hasn’t been there like it was post Covid break but this is a price/ceiling play for tournaments and could pay off huge.
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