Optimal: Elliott, Keselowski, Jones, Lajoie
GPP: Bell, Chastain, Suarez, Gibbs, Stenhouse, Wallace, Nemecheck, Hocevar, Smith, Haley, Williams
GPP Dominators: Logano, Blaney, Busch, McDowell, Hamlin, Byron
Large–field GPP only: Reddick, Bowman
After a rainy weekend at Daytona, NASCAR is back in action at Atlanta Motor Speedway. The weather is looking beautiful, and we appear ready to race on Sunday afternoon. Atlanta had a “face lift” in 2022 when the track was repaved and they started using the same racing package they use at Daytona and Talladega. For this reason, Atlanta is now called a “semi-superspeedway”. The drivers still drive in the draft to reach maximum speed, so raw speed is not as important as it is at most tracks.
This week we still want to focus on place differential, but not to the same extreme that we did at Daytona. So far this weekend, we have seen the Trucks and Xfinity race turn into sort of a follow the leader type race, and we can expect more of that today, at least for the first half of the race. Dominator points are relevant for this race, but nailing them is so hard to do and most options come with a lot of risk. In single-entry contests, we do not recommend taking risks on the guys starting at the very front. Instead we would look more to the guys starting mid-pack on back, that also have the potential to get to the front and end up leading laps as well. Last week, any car in the field was live for a top 10, barring an extreme result, that simply isn’t the case today. You still have to have a great car and it is much more difficult to “luck” your way into the top 10. If you are multi-entering, mixing in some of the guys that start in the top 10 is viable to try and nail the early race dominator. To further prove this point, 2 pole sitters have been optimal in the 4 races here since the change, and the pole sitter has led the most laps in 3 out of 4 races. However, the top 10 as a whole still has a very low optimal rate. Also, only 4 of the top 30 scores overall in the last 4 races started 30th or worse. For this reason, we would advise going with a “5-1” build model for GPPs. That means 5 guys with PD upside and 1 guy who starts near the front and can lead a big chunk of laps. Qualifying didn’t exactly go as planned which throws a little more of a wrench into things, so let’s dive in.
The first driver to discuss, who is a lock in cash games, is Chase Elliott. When looking at Elliott, he fits the mold as the perfect play when searching for place differential and finishing upside. He starts 28th, while also having the 4th best odds to win the race. Atlanta is his hometown and he always puts on a good showing here. It is tough to fade him today, but anything can happen on drafting tracks, so pivoting off of him in GPPs is not out of the cards. In fact, with him being one the two highest projected owned drivers today, a fade could be pretty juicy if you have the stomach for it. Just know that if he has a clean race, you could be drawing dead without him. The next guy who is another absolute lock in cash games is Erik Jones. After nearly spinning out in qualifying, Jones was able to save it, but his lap time was ultimately the slowest in the field after that mishap. He will now have to start dead last, giving him the highest floor on the slate. Jones is a very underrated super speedway racer and should easily find his way to the top half of this field. Jones is a great play in all formats today. Corey Lajoie is the next “safest” play on the board. He is starting 32nd and is drawing a lot of attention as he nearly won this race two years ago. Spire Motorsports (Lajoie’s team) is expected to make a leap this year and be slightly more competitive. While he is a great play with a high floor, he strikes us as the most “fadable” of this group. Not saying you should completely fade if you’re making multiple lineups, but rather he’d be a choice to be underweight on in your lineups. There are other guys who start near him that make for solid pivots, that we will touch on in the GPP section. The last guy who seems to be on everyone’s radar is Brad Keselowski. Keselowski, like Elliott, finds himself starting in the back half of the field, while also being one of the favorites to win this race. He checks all the boxes, but is going to be chalky as well. Both Keselowski and Elliott are great options today, just be wary of their projected ownerships if you are thinking about using both of them in GPPs. Not saying you cannot do that in GPPs, you will just want to get unique with the rest of your lineup.
After the four drivers mentioned above, projected ownership looks to be spread out over all the other top drivers starting in the back half of the field. Christopher Bell, Ross Chastain, Daniel Suarez, Ty Gibbs, Ricky Stenhouse, and Bubba Wallace, are all viable options to round out your lineups. We project all of these guys for around 18-25% ownership, so they are not going to fly under the radar by any means. However, we think it is very likely that a driver or two from this group ends up in the optimal lineup. All of these guys are capable of running up front and posting a great score. It is scary to say, but one of our favorites in this group is Ricky Stenhouse. Stenhouse has a reputation of being careless at times, but there is no denying that he is a great super speedway racer. He is starting 27th and seems to be getting swept under the rug by some and forgotten about. The entire group are great plays, but Stenhouse is the guy that I am not seeing touted as highly as the others, and we think he is a great play.
The next group of drivers to mention are the value guys that start in the rear of the field, but are not drawing as much attention as a driver like Corey Lajoie. John Hunter Nemecheck starts 34th and should have a fast enough hot rod to move forward in this race. You likely are already playing his teammate Erik Jones, and we expect these Toyotas to be good in the draft. Nemechek projects for half the ownership of Lajoie, and is a solid pivot if you need to differentiate at this point in your lineup. Next we have Carson Hocevar. Hocevar, the teammate of Lajoie, starts way back in 35th, and should be able to improve his starting position rather easily. Lajoie is the much more experienced racer, but in similar equipment, Hocevar is a viable pivot in GPPs. It also doesn’t hurt that Hocevar wrecked out last week in the first 10 laps and anybody just looking at past history will have no real interest. These two guys are our preferred plays because of the safe floor, however a few more GPP plays are Zane Smith, Justin Haley and Josh Williams. Smith is teammates with Lajoie and Hocevar, so he’s in pretty solid equipment as well. We love his ownership percentage as well and he could be a key in looking for a big takedown today. Haley is a solid option today. He is the only driver in what is considered “lower tier” equipment worth a look. Rick Ware cars have been solid enough at this track type and Haley is the best driver they have had in one. Finally, Williams is interesting because not many people even know who he is. We don’t think he is necessarily the most skilled driver, but at drafting tracks you don’t have to be. He is also in the same car that AJ Allmendinger usually drives at drafting tracks and has been very successful. Again these last 3 are guys to SPRINKLE in for GPPs.
Lastly, we want to mention the drivers who carry much more risk starting towards the front, but we feel you should be mixing into your lineups in large field GPPs. Joey Logano starts on the front row, and is one of the best super speedway racers in the sport. He has a very low floor today, but he could potentially lead a good portion of this race if the race turns into a snooze-fest, like the Xfinity series race did. He is worth consideration in MME formats. Ryan Blaney is a similar play to Logano, but he starts four spots further back. Yes, he has a handful more place differential points to gain, but also his path to leading a good portion of this race is much thinner than Logano’s, who starts on the front row. He is still very interesting as he had the highest driver rating and average finish at new Atlanta. We prefer Logano if you are shooting for an early race dominator. If you give a look to Logano though, you must give a look to Michael McDowell who is actually your pole sitter. Logano is much more skilled than McDowell, but McDowell will try to hold him off and secure the lead to start this race. He is worth sprinkling into a small percent of your lineups. The reason for mentioning these guys is that we just saw Jesse Love, who qualified on the pole for the Xfinity race, lead almost the entire race at 5% ownership. This is certainly not the optimal way to build, and I would not expect a dominant performance like Love to happen in the Cup series, but we wanted you to be aware that the guys starting at the front do have a little more upside today than they did at Daytona. A few more dart throws from the first half of the field are Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin and William Byron. Busch had an amazing car last week and looked great in the draft, it wouldn’t be a shock at all to see him as the main dominator today. Hamlin and Byron would definitely need to lead some laps and probably get a top 3 finish to be optimal today, but both could easily do it. Byron has numerous drafting track wins and is coming off winning the 500 last week. Hamlin, along with the aforementioned Blaney, are the two best drafting drivers in NASCAR currently and in his no man’s land sort of starting spot it keeps his ownership projection in check. We still do not like these guys in cash.
The last two drivers to mention today are Tyler Reddick and Alex Bowman. Not much to say here as they are only super GPP plays, however they start far enough back they could work, and both are in top tier equipment. Reddick is teammates with Wallace and drives for Hamlin, so he has top tier equipment and drafting help. He showed he can get it done in his Duel race at Daytona last week. Bowman is in a Hendrick car along with Elliott, Larson and Byron. He is coming off a down year last year where he broke his back and wasn’t the same after returning, but people are forgetting how good he actually is and we like taking advantage of this until they remember.