Dominators: Larson, Bell, Hamlin, Reddick
Place Differential: Byron, Wallace, Blaney, Keselowski, Preece (GPP), Hill (GPP)
Value: Stenhouse, Hocevar, Haley (cash), Herbst (GPP)
NASCAR returns to a mile and a half track as the Cup series drivers head to Kansas for a 400 mile race. Kansas is very similar to Las Vegas, where we saw Kyle Larson dominate and bring home the W. As far as betting odds go, Larson is the favorite to win at Kansas, with Denny Hamlin right behind him. There are 267 laps in this race, so we typically want to shoot for at least two dominators in GPPs. Let’s jump right into our top dominators.
Kyle Larson is the favorite to win the race and dominated at Las Vegas earlier this year. He showed great speed in practice and is the optimal lap leader throughout the race. He is the best driver on 1.5 mile tracks and he does not show any sign of letting up anytime soon. Larson is an elite play in all formats.
Christopher Bell will get the luxury of starting from the pole today. We expect Bell and the Toyotas to be strong here today, which makes us believe in Bell to be up front all day and be a potential dominator. However, fitting another stud along with Larson and Byron (who we will address later), is very tough. Bell can be jammed into three stud lineups, but know that the second half of your lineup is going to be super weak, so you would likely be drawing dead if you do not nail the laps led with your studs. The other route would be to fade Larson in GPPs and go Bell instead. This would be a GPP only move, as we believe fading Larson is a huge risk.
Denny Hamlin and Tyler Reddick are both strong candidates to get to the front and lead laps here as well. Hamlin is the only driver to finish in the top 5 in all four next-gen Kansas races, and is just behind Larson in betting odds. He has been great at 1.5 mile tracks and was great in practice. Reddick will also look to contend with Larson like he did at Las Vegas. At Vegas, Reddick nearly was able to hawk down Larson at the end but ultimately came up just short. Reddick and Hamlin are both in Toyotas which we are high on here today. They both also offer a little bit of PD points to go along with their Dominator potential, giving them huge ceilings.
William Byron has arguably been the best driver this season along with Hamlin and Larson. He has almost assumed the new Jimmie Johnson role, of never the best car but they work on it and get him in good positions to capitalize. Today he will be an absolute chalk bomb as he should be. Byron had the best car in practice but then hit the wall on his qualifying lap leading to a 36th starting spot. I’m sure some people will say this is a cute spot to fade and look at the high priced dominators, but not here. We wouldn’t blame you at all for just hitting the lock button here 🔒 and moving on. Also there aren’t as many dom points today so PD points will be even more key. Byron is the by far best play of the day.
Bubba Wallace is also a great play here today. Not only do he and Byron give you PD they have race winning upside. Bubba looked good in practice but just didn’t do so hot in qualifying. Toyota has had great speed all year and 23×11 racing has been dominant here. We love all the Gibbs and semi-Gibbs (23×11) Toyotas today, and Bubba gives you the safest floor and a high ceiling.
Brad Keselowski is another PD play who will be chalk but for good reason. He starts 30th but ran the 14th best 10 lap averages. This is starting to become a norm for him this year. Again we love all 3 of these guys but so will everyone else, just make sure you find ways to get different somewhere.
Speaking of getting different, Ryan Preece and Austin Hill both are a hybrid punt/ PD play. Preece burned a lot of people last week and didn’t show the same speed as his teammates in practice. However starting in the mid 30s gives him plenty of room to move up. Austin Hill is in a 3rd RCR car this week. He may have picked a good week to jump up as Rowdy had really good speed. Hill starts in the back and we expect him to try and stay clean and turn laps to gain experience in the Cup car. That’s exactly what we want/need from our cheap guys in the back, don’t try and be a hero just do your job.
With many builds today being three stud builds, we are going to need some value punts to make it all fit. Ricky Stenhouse and Carson Hocevar are two of our favorite cheap plays. They do not start in the very back, but we like them to run around where they start and possibly move up a few spots. Both guys were solid at Vegas, specifically Hocevar, who ran in the top 15. Digging a little cheaper than these two, we find that Justin Haley is likely going to be chalkier than he should be, just because using someone at his price-point is the key to fitting in three studs. However, we actually prefer his teammate Riley Herbst in GPPs at lower ownership. Herbst will be making another spot start for RWR and we expect Stewart-Hass Racing to be funding this car as they have in the past. He will have Monster Energy sponsoring his car and we find it unlikely that Monster would agree to this without SHR funding the car. Although nothing is confirmed, we like pivoting to Herbst in GPPs as we believe they may muster up a little more speed with some SHR help.