Optimal: Bell, Larson, Byron, Reddick, Blaney, Chastain, Keselowski, Hocevar, Haley
GPP: Hamlin, Elliott, Briscoe, Bowman, Wallace, Preece, Stenhouse, Herbst
NASCAR heads out west this weekend to Las Vegas for the Pennzoil 400. This race is great for DFS purposes, since we have so much data to go off of, and this should be the least volatile race we have seen this year. Let’s break it all down!
Unfortunately for Ryan Blaney, he crashed in practice and will start dead last. Fortunately for us, we do not even have to think about one of our roster spots, as Blaney is a lock in all formats. He appears to be a top 5 car this weekend and his floor and ceiling is higher than any other driver. Lock him in.
Next we are going to want to shoot for at least two dominators. Keep in mind that despite starting from the rear, Blaney has a great chance to dominate the second half of this race. The HMS duo of Kyle Larson and William Byron are your optimal choices for your first dominator. Larson, the opening favorite in this race, remains the race favorite and is going to see plenty of ownership. Larson is great at Vegas and had a fast car in practice. However, after practice, I am under the impression that Byron may be better than Larson. If we are getting an ownership discount on Byron, I will give Byron the nod as our top dominator in tournaments. The other two top dominators are the Toyotas of Christopher Bell and Tyler Reddick. Bell has won three races in a row, but he did not show up with the same speed for practice this week. He is still viable in tournaments due to his skills and his team currently firing on all cylinders right now, but in a vacuum, I would rank him 4th out of our dominator options. Reddick, on the other hand, appears to be very fast again, and if anybody is to knock off Hendrick Motorsports this weekend, it may be the #45 of Reddick. Many guys fired off slow in practice and prevailed in the long run, or vice-versa, but what I love about Reddick is that he was consistently a top 5 car throughout the entire practice session. I believe Byron, Larson, and Reddick are in a tier of their own this weekend.
Arguably the best car in practice was Alex Bowman. Bowman finally brought some speed to the track that can compete with his HMS teammates. If the race is anything like practice, Bowman will find himself in contention this afternoon. Many will be scared to play Bowman as a potential dominator, but he has elite speed and could easily lead laps. Bowman is an elite GPP play this afternoon.
Moving onto our optimal place differential options, which is headlined by Brad Keselowski and Carson Hocevar. Both drivers will start in the mid 20s and showed great speed in practice. Hocevar was great in both the short and long run, while Brad fired off slow but was great in the long run. I was impressed by Hocevar more, so I will give him the nod if choosing between the two, but both are fantastic options. Starting a little further ahead is Bubba Wallace. There is not much that can separate Bubba from Hocevar or Brad, as I view all three as top 12-14 cars. However, we should get lower ownership on Bubba due to him starting a little further ahead and being a little more expensive, so he is an interesting pivot in GPPs to get some lower ownership.
The value options this week are pretty ugly. The best option is Justin Haley, who starts 33rd and should sneak into the top 25. Yup, 20-25th is probably his ceiling, which just goes to show how bad the value is this week, considering Haley is our best option. Our other top option is Riley Herbst, who was a tad worse than Haley in practice. However, I trust the equipment that Herbst is in more and he was always good here in the Xfinity Series. In optimal formats, Haley is the better choice as I believe he is safer, but I think Herbst has a higher ceiling so he is a great value option in tournaments. Ricky Stenhouse is viable as well, but I prefer Herbst or Haley. The only other value driver I would consider in tournaments would be Ryan Preece. This is historically one of his better tracks, and RFK Racing has a tendency to either hit big or swing and miss at intermediates, so I think there is a scenario where Preece can hang out about where he starts (12th) for most of the race, and that would be a great fantasy score for his price. Preece has a very low floor due to his starting position though, so this would be a deep GPP play only. Best of luck this afternoon!