Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 Drivers start your engine.
Speaker 2 00:00:22 What's going on? F Fa Nation, welcome back. This is the Fantasy Alarm NASCAR DFS podcast. I am Dan Malin. I am joined as always by the F S w A three time NASCAR writer of the year. Matt Sells. We are talking Atlanta, kind of sorta super speedway drafting, racing, whatever the hell they did to reconfigure this track. Uh, anyway, Matt, we are coming off the West Coast swing. Uh, NASCAR just wrapped up three straight weeks in Auto Club, Vegas and Phoenix. How are you doing? How excited are you just to get the cars back on the East Coast? Doesn't matter to you at all.
Speaker 3 00:01:01 I'm, you know, I'm pretty happy anytime NASCAR cars are on the track. Uh, to be honest, um, I thought Phoenix was a very interesting race. I thought it was relatively dull for most of it. And then Kevin Harvick started making his run in the third stage and running people down and then he got screwed by a caution that, let's face it, kind of had to be called, but I thought it was a little quick on the draw. Um, he had a tire fall the hell off the car again. So we're, we're back to that problem. Um, Hendrick, I don't know man. I think Hendrick and Justin Haley are gonna win their appeal for the louver uh, situation. Um,
Speaker 2 00:01:50 I think it's more likely Haley wins his, but I'm interested in your argument.
Speaker 3 00:01:55 Uh, well, so Haley, yeah, I think he's a lock to win it because A, they only took one. Yep. Uh, which means it's inconsistent. Um, and they never raced it. Obviously they took them Friday before, um, they were racing. So, you know, it, it is not like an advantage was gained on the track because they raced with supposedly approved louvers. But Hendrick is basically going with the same argument that the parts we were given didn't match what the single source specs said they would, um, and what they got approved for. So I think that part is interesting to me that here we are with a single source deal. Now it's a lot easier to convince me that Haley didn't do anything wrong when only one of his louvers was taken than when all of the louvers were taken off all of the Henrick cars.
Speaker 2 00:02:55 So it's not just Hailey though, like nothing was taken from AJ Alman DER's car either.
Speaker 3 00:03:00 Right. So why are you gonna cheat with one Louver that's different Like that doesn't, literally doesn't make any sense. Um, so I, I don't know. I did find it interesting though that the fine Levit against Hendrick is the largest in the sports history because it's actually larger when you combine them. It's larger than what Michael Walter racing got for a spin gate when they rigged the end of the Richmond race, uh, a bunch of years ago to get, uh, Truex and somebody else into the playoff. Um, so Anna, we'll see, uh, I think it's interesting that even though Hendrick is appealing, they are not deferring the penalty for the crew chiefs this week. So there are backup crew chiefs on basically all of the Hendrick cars. Um, we see backup kiddingly though, because one of 'em is Greg Ives who was literally
Speaker 2 00:03:55 <laugh>,
Speaker 3 00:03:57 Um, minding is another one, right. And he like, he's he stopped last year too, so like, it's not like these dudes are at a practice, right? Right. Like I, I think it's, I think that Hendrick is well suited for having to swap out crew chiefs cuz they basically have an entire backbench of dudes who probably should still be crew chiefing.
Speaker 2 00:04:25 So here would be my next question is for a race like Atlanta and based on what we saw last year in the, in the very small two race sample size, we're not really weighing the lack of crew chiefs too heavily, right? Like this this correct.
Speaker 3 00:04:40 Like it's okay, it's, you gotta call pit strategy with the rest of the team. Yep. And that's about it. Like there's no tire wear fuel shouldn't really be a concern here. Um, so it's basically just, hey, we're gonna come pit with everybody this time and go catch the draft. Right? Like that's basically what it's gonna come down to. So this isn't, and that's maybe why Hendrick isn't deferring for this race because it doesn't really matter. So it shows good faith that they're taking the penalty seriously while also appealing the penalty. Um, but we'll see. I think, I think you're right. I think Haley probably wins it and I think Hendrick might have a slightly tougher time because it was all of the louvers off of at least three of the four Hendrick cars. I can't remember if they took 'em off of Josh Barry's or not. Um, but maybe
Speaker 2 00:05:36 Not. Cause you got a top 10 finish last week.
Speaker 3 00:05:38 I mean, they're already good places. They, they were taken off on Friday and they were not raced in. Right. But they did go to practice in them
Speaker 2 00:05:47 Either way. Those cars were fast without them onsite.
Speaker 3 00:05:50 Right. Because three of the four qualified and what the top five, so wasn't it Larson and Byron on the, on the pole and outside Pole or Byron was third and Bowman was like fifth and Larson was on the pole.
Speaker 2 00:06:09 I think Bob Bowman qualified like P 18.
Speaker 3 00:06:13 Did he, did he have an issue? I can't, this is bad. I can't even remember what happened. Well,
Speaker 2 00:06:17 I only want to say that I'll, I'll I'll pull up the raising reference. I only wanna say that because
Speaker 3 00:06:21 He qualified, he qualified in the in the tens because I played the PD card with Alex Bowman.
Speaker 2 00:06:26 Yeah. And uh, when B Bowman is gonna be such a great df s play for so long because of his crew chief.
Speaker 3 00:06:35 Yeah. So let, let's flip it to Atlanta. And you and I were debating before we started podcasting exactly how we wanna build for this week because, so it's a sh it's a very small sample size for Atlanta, which is a weird thing to say. Racing in Atlanta it's like 1960. Okay, here's the problem. They completely redid the track after 2020 or 2021 and repaved it and refiled it and made it basically a mile and a half super speedway. Right. To the point where they race with the same package at Atlanta as they have at Talladega and Daytona. Right. Can I
Speaker 2 00:07:12 Ask you a question?
Speaker 3 00:07:13 Yes.
Speaker 2 00:07:14 All right. So right before we started recording this podcast, I did a show with Ryan Larkin and Jason Hamlet of uh, daily Fantasy Racing and Rome Pier sports. They both, and I agree with them, they both claim that this, the repave and the reconfiguration, they, it ruined Atlanta Motor Speedway. I actually agree because this, this drafting and super speedway salary, it's not my, it's my favorite style of racing to see live. But if I'm watching on TV or if I'm playing dfs, it sucks. It's my least favorite style of racing. Do you agree?
Speaker 3 00:07:44 I would agree. We had a blast when we went to Daytona watching it like in person. Yeah. Because you cannot fathom how fat, like the speed doesn't translate on tv. It doesn't Right. It like I can tell you they're doing 200 miles an hour, but until you see them do it in person it doesn't translate. So like
Speaker 2 00:08:01 We had a really good view when we went to Daytona together because we were on top of like a pavilion that was on top of the garages and we would pretty much just stand on one of the lunch tables up there and we were just like, basically like twirling, just watching the cars go, we, we probably had the best view of the track just like being in the infield and just watching the cars go by at 200 miles an hour. It was phenomenal racing but
Speaker 3 00:08:22 It just way closer than you think they do. Yeah. And
Speaker 2 00:08:25 It doesn't translate on tv.
Speaker 3 00:08:27 No. So to see it live is fantastic but I would agree that I much prefer Atlanta as a tire wear strategy who can save their tires, um, type track to what they've turned it into and who knows, it's only one year into it. It's possible it gets better with age like Atlanta, the old Atlanta did. But that being said, we did get two different styles of race last year. The March race was a cluster, like it was a disaster from start to finish. <laugh> nobody, they didn't have practice cuz it's a plate race. Yeah. Qualifying didn't matter. They got out there and nobody could handle the speeds in a mile and a half and they were wrecking left, right and sideways all the time. Like a third of the race was run under caution it seems like. Right. Then we get to the July race, which by the way was also a hundred miles shorter.
Speaker 3 00:09:28 The 400 mile race instead of the 500 mile race in March and completely different race, it was much more of a standard intermediate race where five of the top six finishers in that race started in the top seven. The only one that didn't was Eric Jones starting 25th and going to fourth. Right. Chase Elliott won from the poll. Chastain finish second, starting second. Austin Cindrich finished third starting fifth. Ryan Blaney started sixth, finished fifth and Daniel Suarez started seventh and finished sixth. So from that regard, it makes it very interesting to build for this weekend because a lot of people are going, well we're just gonna build like a standard Daytona Talladega, here's the problem. Laps led matter in this race. We saw in both races the guy who won the race led at least 96 laps. Now do we expect that to happen this year? Maybe, maybe not. I still think they drive it like an intermediate, which means passing for the lead is really hard to do. Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:10:40 Do we expect chaos? I don't know. You said yourself, Dan lives in Atlanta for those of you he lives in the Atlanta area. So he's, he knows the weather forecast for this weekend. It's gonna rain Friday. We're recording this pretty late on Thursday night. It's gonna rain Friday. Almost assuredly washing out practice for uh, trucks and Xfinity. Yeah. Qualifying. Yeah and qualifying in practice Saturday supposed to be better but still cold and Sunday's supposed to be colder, right? Sundays <inaudible> the weekend. Yeah. So my inclination is that will give it more grip. I feel like the colder the track, the more grip it tends to have, especially on a new surface like Atlanta. Yeah. So you and I disagree on this because you're expecting another March race like last year in which all all hell broke loose. And to give you an idea of that one in the folds of honor, quick trip 500 Byron won it, but he started 12th Chastain finished second again bef started seventh Chase Elliot finished sixth. Started sixth. And then you had, so you had people all over the map in this one where like the top six guys, nobody start or the top five, nobody started better than seventh. It includes Lajoie who started 33rd and then you had Truex in the top 10 starting 26. You had Haley top 11 starting 22nd. So like you had a bunch of dudes wreck out and have issues in the March 20. But I don't know if we get that again. I think we get more of a July race.
Speaker 2 00:12:23 So what if I tweak it a little bit?
Speaker 3 00:12:27 Okay. Okay.
Speaker 2 00:12:28 So let's look at the two race sample size that we have and, and, and I'm kind of disregarding the weather argument here. Basically what we've seen in the two races is that we've seen the guy, the drivers in good equipment finish. Well you know like right the spring race, Byron won the race let a hundred laps Chastain started seventh but finished second led 42 laps with 14 fastest laps. I'm really trying not to put too much weight when I, when I think dominator points this weak, I'm really just trying to think of laps led because similar to what we've seen with Daytona and Talladega is that the fastest laps are fairly evenly distributed throughout the field. Like nobody has more than 20 fastest laps.
Speaker 3 00:13:13 Yeah. The most in the spring race last year was 17, but
Speaker 2 00:13:16 Chase Briscoe who started on the pole,
Speaker 3 00:13:19 Tyler Reddick is the only guy who didn't have a fastest lap last year, which
Speaker 2 00:13:24 Is kind of,
Speaker 3 00:13:25 And he was on track for 245 of the 325 laps.
Speaker 2 00:13:30 Yeah. But like if you're still looking at the top 10 from last year's spring race, Byron Chastain, Kurt Busch, Daniel Suarez Lejo who who does have this race circled on his calendar now he has gone on record on stacking pennies, uh, you know, saying like, you know, he knows like his team's best chances to win Daytona Talladega and now Atlanta. But even past Justine or Lajoie who grabbed a top five at Atlanta last spring. You have Chase Elliott, Chris Buscher, Martin Joyce Jr. Joy Logano, Alex Bowman, Justin Haley who started 22nd and finished 11th again. Very good. Similar to Corey Leroy very good plate slash drafting racer. Then you got Brad Klowski, Bubba Wallace, Eric Jones. So it's like we still see the mix of drivers on good teams but also drivers that are just good. Uh, drafting racers in general. Corey Lajoie almost won this race in the summer. Justin Haley still finished seventh. Right?
Speaker 3 00:14:33 This is where Chase Elliott put Lajoie into the wall.
Speaker 2 00:14:36 Yeah, but I actually, I mean
Speaker 3 00:14:38 It was a late, it was a late block. It wasn't, it was a late
Speaker 2 00:14:40 Block And even Laroy said like, you know, he made an aggressive move to try to get back to the lead and he shook hands with Elliot on Victory Lane. Like Lajoie handled it with pure class. And so like, and I'm kind of pulling for Lejo this week cuz it's like my, my heart wants him to to win this race. Sure.
Speaker 3 00:15:00 It's also Marsh Band is man, what's one more upset.
Speaker 2 00:15:02 Exactly. And like I took him at 50 to one to win. Not the greatest odds we've ever seen Corey Laroy to ever. I
Speaker 3 00:15:09 Would've hoped for a little longer but he
Speaker 2 00:15:11 Should be 100 to one. Let's be honest.
Speaker 3 00:15:14 Which sport book did you take him at? Just
Speaker 2 00:15:16 Curious. I can only take him at DK sports book.
Speaker 3 00:15:19 Okay. Because I'm actually in Virginia right now. So I'm actually legally allowed to bat. Oh
Speaker 2 00:15:24 God where are you getting him?
Speaker 3 00:15:27 Um, so I'm looking at DK sports book and
Speaker 2 00:15:31 He's probably still 50. I wish I took Haley at 60.
Speaker 3 00:15:34 He is, he is 50 to one. Let me check FanDuel cuz now that I'm actually in a state where I can bet I can actually see fan lots which is um, let me, let me see. I gotta log back into fan over there.
Speaker 2 00:15:49 You're good. Take your time.
Speaker 3 00:15:50 Which is also then gonna, by the way, send me another flipping email from those people.
Speaker 2 00:15:54 Yeah cuz you have to log in to the whole verification thing. But like my point remains like, you know, Corey Laroy gets excited for an additional track, uh, every year now. Like he has six races that he can kind of pencil in. Like these are the races I can potentially win And he's almost like a super Speedway staple. Um, that, that's not to say he's completely exempt from wrecking but these are the kinds of tracks including Atlanta like we saw last year, he had a top five in the spring race, almost won the summer race. You know if if he stays clean he's probably gonna finish very well. I've seen plenty of people tout that. You should bet him top 10 and I don't disagree if you can get him at a good value. Yeah
Speaker 3 00:16:41 He's 50 to one on band FanDuel the win top 10 on FanDuel, Corey Laroy is plus 500. So he is five. That's
Speaker 2 00:16:55 Great.
Speaker 3 00:16:57 He's five to one. He's right there. The other guys who are top 10 at plus 500 is McDowell, Gregson, almond Dinger, Gill Linder all five to one.
Speaker 2 00:17:08 Okay. So
Speaker 3 00:17:09 The only ones who are worse are Ty Gibbs at six to one Harrison Burton six and a half to one Ty Dylan at eight to one. Cody wearing nine to one McLeod at nine to one and JJ Yaley at nine to one.
Speaker 2 00:17:21 So real quick, Ty Gibbs is actually kind of interesting because he won one of the Xfinity races last year. Yeah but if we're talking Corey Laroy like you're getting five to one for a driver to finish top 10, he almost won the score.
Speaker 3 00:17:33 That's cause DK doesn't have top 10 bets. Yeah. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Yes they do stand corrected
Speaker 2 00:17:40 But if you can get Corey Laroy five to one to finish top 10. He is finish fifth year in the spring. He almost won the spring race. Like take that
Speaker 3 00:17:48 <laugh>. Yeah get it on FanDuel cuz he's two to one for top 10 on dk.
Speaker 2 00:17:52 Oh F that. Yeah. Yeah. Shop around, go, go, go bet shop. Well
Speaker 3 00:17:57 You shop because Ty Gibbs is also three to one on DK for a top 10, but he's six to one on FanDuel for a top ten one.
Speaker 2 00:18:02 I know, my god. FanDuel's offering the best odds. God
Speaker 3 00:18:05 And I'm pretty sure they won't let us parlay them. Oh
Speaker 2 00:18:09 I might have to drive to Tennessee this weekend. No Fatal. Fatal will not let you parlay top tens anymore. Not after the uh,
Speaker 3 00:18:16 Well we're about to find out <laugh>
Speaker 2 00:18:18 Not after the stacking. Denny's guys gave away the milli maker last year. Can you do
Speaker 3 00:18:26 It? Your selections can't be combined into a single parlay. Nope. I tried to parlay Ty Gibson, Corey Lejo top tens and it wouldn't let me do it. Yeah, <laugh>, I mean I understand why the guy used a $17 free bet to win basically a million dollars at Daytona last year. <laugh>
Speaker 2 00:18:47 He is awesome. Good for him.
Speaker 3 00:18:50 He literally parlayed the last five top 10 dudes who all started in the back like BJ McLeod and Lejo and Cody Ware and something else and they all finished top 10. So unfortunately we can't parlay them on FanDuel anymore.
Speaker 2 00:19:10 No, but you, especially on FanDuel, if you're getting, you know, five to one on Corey Laroy to finish top 10, that's great.
Speaker 3 00:19:17 Yeah. Also you can't do it on,
Speaker 2 00:19:19 On Ty Gibbs to finish top 10. That's, that's still pretty good. I'd probably prefer Lejo. Um, but you, you do have to, if you take those separately, you have to feel pretty good about one of those guys hitting
Speaker 3 00:19:33 Correct. Just trying to see like, oh God
Speaker 2 00:19:37 I might have to text my dad because he lives
Speaker 3 00:19:39 True. X is plus one 15 for a top 10 moment is plus one 15 for a top 10. Bob is plus one 15 for a top 10 on FanDuel. Daniel Swt Lake. What is Chastain? Chastain is minus two 50, which is reasonable.
Speaker 2 00:19:59 Yeah,
Speaker 3 00:20:01 But he's also Chastain is plus 400 for a top three finish though.
Speaker 2 00:20:08 I I would not take that the
Speaker 3 00:20:11 Second in both races last year.
Speaker 2 00:20:13 <laugh> I know put four to one to finish top three.
Speaker 3 00:20:17 Yes.
Speaker 2 00:20:18 I can't do it. I'd rather take him outright to win at longer odds.
Speaker 3 00:20:25 What is he to win on FanDuel? Just curious. He is plus 1200 to win.
Speaker 2 00:20:30 I'd rather just take that.
Speaker 3 00:20:32 I agree. I agree. Um, so you know, we, we said in Discord we would talk a little bit about contest election To me it's gonna come down to how you see the slate playing out. Do you see it playing out more like the July race, which was a 400 mile race as opposed to last March, which was a 500 mile race. Sunday's race is 400 miles. So the distance is more like the distance and laps are identical to July's race. The weather is similar to last March <laugh>. So to me it comes down to do you see Chaos reigning Supreme and you feel more comfortable with gpp or do you think it's a fairly readable slate? And obviously we are recording this before practice and qualifying two reasons. One, it there's no practice for Cup Series
Speaker 2 00:21:29 Or any series.
Speaker 3 00:21:31 Well yeah, um, qualifying is on Saturday for the Cup series. I'm still gonna be in the car and Dan is gonna be at the track on Saturday cuz he's going to the truck in Xfinity races. Um, so schedule wise it wasn't gonna work to record that. But secondly it, we also consider it to be they're running the same package as Daytona and Talladega. So typically for those races we do it some point midweek and it's a strategy pump. So if you can get a good read on it, you feel good about how the slate is breaking down, you can play cash here. I'm not gonna tell you not to. Um, but I'm also not going full bore stack the back route for chaos to happen cuz I don't, I don't believe that will happen. The way I'm seeing it is I'm building it. Like if I'm making, how many lineups are you making this week?
Speaker 2 00:22:32 Okay, so it, it really does depend on how qualifying shakes out. So currently we, you know, we we're recording this Thursday night. I'm of the mindset that qualifying for truck and Xfinity has rained out and what I really wanted to do this weekend was just do one cash line for each series, play it in single entry, cash contest low dollar. Cuz I don't want to go blowing all my bankroll on a, a track like this where we have a very small sample size. So I was gonna do maybe 30 to $40 in cash contest for, you know, truck with maybe like $5 in tournaments. Same thing for Xfinity. But then for Cup, since I feel more confident that we're gonna have qualifying because there is a part of me that feels truck and Xfinity qualifying is ringed out and the starting order is set by the metric, which may relegate me to just playing tournaments and playing less in my bank role, I still think, uh, cup gets qualifying in.
Speaker 2 00:23:36 And so I feel better about once that lineup shakes out and I can kind of dissect it, maybe I'll play cash, but if I don't play cash, I'm not gonna complain about just playing gpp. But if I'm gonna play gpp, you know, they're, I probably dabble in the, in the happy hour, which is just the $1 20 max and I just make lineups based on what I know about I guess these drafting races and what we saw last year and trying to get that one guy that can maybe lead 90 to 120 laps and then fill in guys that fill in five other drivers on DraftKings that can just finish in the top 15, maybe in the top 10 with pd. Um, that kind of is my strategy. I know it sucks because it's like I don't like saying I don't know, but in, in a situation like this, I don't think there's any shame in saying I still don't know what to expect from this race this weekend.
Speaker 3 00:24:35 I agree. So if I'm building, if I'm building let's say five lineups, I'm gonna build four of them to be a standard intermediate lineup where we have one dominator and then we're hunting the guys that can give us good finished positions, some fastest laps in there, um, maybe some pd. Then I'm building one lineup that is a prototypical super speedway lineup, which has maybe one guy in the top 10 and the rest of them starting 20th on back. Right. If I'm building 10 lineups, I'll shift that to like 70% intermediate, 30% pure chaos. Because if the march race happens again like it did last year, which again I don't suspect because a lot of the stuff happened in the last hundred miles of that race. Like a lot of chaos happened in the last hundred miles.
Speaker 2 00:25:40 Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:25:41 So the point where if you look at um, looking at where I get my data from, right? And we go with the last 10% of the race. So they have, they have a stack called position at last 10% of the race. So with only 10% of the race left, which would be the last, let's see there's 325 laps last year. So 30
Speaker 2 00:26:04 Between the last 26 to 32 laps.
Speaker 3 00:26:07 Yeah. Here was the top 10. William Byer and Bubba Wallace, Ryan Blaney, Eric Amar, Eric Jones, Daniel Suarez, Ross Chastain, Alex Bowman, c Bell, and Klowski. By the time the finish happened, only like a few of those dudes were left in the top, in the top 10. The only ones that were left who were running in the top 10 with like 30 laughs to go, Byron, Chastain, Suarez and Bowman, everybody else wrecked out including Lake Sea. Bell finished 23rd, he started 27th, moved up to ninth with 30 laps to go and finished 23rd. Amarillo went from fourth to 22nd in the last 30 laps. Um, so like the last hundred miles of that race had a bunch of chaos happen, like Blaney started second was in the top three or four basically the whole race. And then with about 30 laps to go somewhere between that and the finish, he moved to 17th.
Speaker 3 00:27:14 Right. So if the race is shorter, feel like that eliminates some of the craziness from the last part of that race. So that's why I'm leaning towards a higher percentage being like a normal intermediate. But if somebody screws up qualifying and, and you know, provides us with a chalky play or for some odd reason the forecast shifts and they can't get in qualifying on Saturday, which I again highly doubt happens, they're gonna set it by a formula, which by the way the Hendrick penalties are gonna come into play cuz they all shifted massively down to where they are in the point standing. So there is that. However, there is one Hendrick driver, I don't want any parts of this weekend. It's Kyle, Josh Barry.
Speaker 2 00:28:09 I initially thought Josh Barry, but you know what? Now that you said it, Kyle Larson has the most expensive driver on DraftKings at 11,200. Not the greatest resume on drafting or super speedways. I think he only has one. I think his best finish is fourth and he's led in his entire career maybe 60 to 70 laps if that's accurate.
Speaker 3 00:28:32 Yeah, I saw a tweet, I saw a tweet earlier this week and I don't remember who had it. Let me do a see if I can't do a quick search on Twitter to come up with the, because I, I know I saw a tweet about Larson being, I think he's also like cofa at a bunch of the sports books this week,
Speaker 2 00:28:55 Which makes no sense. I don't get why he's the COFA with William by William Byron. I get he's won Daytona, he won this race a year ago, was running very well in the summer race. I understand justifying him as a nine to one favorite to win. I don't get putting Larson up there unless sports books are just looking at, you know, from a casual fan perspective of like who has led the most ra lap, the last handful of races and they're just saying Byron and Larson are dominating the last two races. Then I get it. But at the same time, Byron has shown the ability to run very well here. Kyle Larson has admitted to not being very good in these drafting races and these super speedway races. Like why the hell would we play him this week?
Speaker 3 00:29:38 I, I
Speaker 2 00:29:39 Hope, I hope he lands on the pole somehow when they run just a single lap by themselves and then we can just go out and let you know the tournament players like accumulate 20 plus percent ownership and we can just fade him and have some edge.
Speaker 3 00:29:55 Yeah, I completely agree. Uh, that was the number one comment by the way when uh, prices came out was like, how in the hell is he that much? Yeah. Like it just doesn't, it just doesn't make any sense because his stats at drafting tracks are not good at all in terms of like leading laps, having fastest laps. He always seems to crash out or get caught in the issue, um, at Daytona or Talladega. Um, it just doesn't, it just doesn't make any any sense. Now that being said, if he's on the pole, I, I don't know if our full no play dance can hold, especially if we expect it to be like a normal intermediate, but that's still, still. So
Speaker 2 00:30:57 What if, what if we added a caveat to him being on the pole and it depends on who is starting next to him and who is starting immediately behind him.
Speaker 3 00:31:08 That's true because he was on the pole at Phoenix and got jumped at the beginning of the right now he made up
Speaker 2 00:31:14 And the only reason he got out to the lead in the second stage is because he beat Byron off Pitt road.
Speaker 3 00:31:19 Right. Um, so he did make up for it and he led a chunk of laps obviously and it it did get him like a hundred and something points last week. Yeah. But originally he did not get the jump <laugh>. Yeah. His teammate smoked him. Um,
Speaker 2 00:31:42 So yeah, it's, it's an entirely different race strike this week. So like don't put too much weight into what you saw last week.
Speaker 3 00:31:48 Right. And also by the way, anybody who wants to give you Atlanta stats from pre 2022, don't listen. Just don't listen cuz it doesn't, it doesn't matter. It's an entirely different track.
Speaker 2 00:32:04 Yeah those stats probably correlate better with like high tire wire and like auto club and Miami
Speaker 3 00:32:12 And and whatnot, but um, yeah I can't find, I can't find that stats tweet that I saw earlier in the week. But yeah, it was basically like he's led basically one lap in the last like eight plate bases or something and that was only because of he missed the hit call with the rest of his Chevy teammates or something like <laugh>. So, um, I don't know, but that's how I'm building this week is mostly for standard intermediate. Um, but you still have to take into account um, the fact that there's drafting involved and some dudes just aren't good at drafting.
Speaker 2 00:32:58 You know, I feel like we've spent so much time on I guess, uh,
Speaker 2 00:33:05 Race theory contest selection. Uh, I'm still kind of up in the air of how I'm gonna approach these races, especially, you know, once we know the fate of truck and Xfinity qualifying and everything. Um, for cash games for Sunday's race, do you think you're gonna go more of a stack the back method or are you gonna just not necessarily throw a GPP lineup together or are you just gonna try to throw the best educated lineup together that you think? So by that I mean like maybe you have an idea of three to four drivers in the back that you can stack. Maybe there's a driver in the teens and inside the top 25 that you can stack and are you gonna try to find that one guy that can maybe lead 100 laps in this race or for cash games? Are you just stacking the back?
Speaker 3 00:33:56 So that's, that's an outstanding question. So if we take a look at again, the July race, cuz there's 400 laps or 400 miles rather. So I want to go off that cuz it's gonna be an equal point total to um, what we're gonna see on Sunday. And look, there was a pretty decent amount of guys I don't have access to, I don't remember how much a lot of these guys were for this race, but there are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 guys in the field put up 40 or more DK points. So out of those, they all had a pretty decent mattering of fastest laps. Not all of them lead laps. Um, in fact out of those 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 of them, so basically half of them lead laps and two of those were two and seven laps. So it's not like you're getting very many points out of those. Um, but it was mainly PD that got you over the 40 points, uh, last year. So it's again not a Pures to act to back. Um, and it's gonna depend on how um, stuff fully shakes out, but I don't know of the guys that put up 40 points in last July's race. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 of them started in the top 10.
Speaker 2 00:35:44 Yeah. I mean,
Speaker 3 00:35:48 And then a bunch of 'em started 25th <laugh> or worse.
Speaker 2 00:35:54 I was trying to tell myself all week long for, for truck Xfinity and Cup just do one lineup, play it mostly in cash games, throw it in some, you know, low dollar tournaments as well just to see what happens. Uh, but as we get closer to the weekend and I re I'm realizing like Truck and Xfinity, the qualifying session might be rained out, in which case I'm relegated to building, uh, just one tournament lineup for each race. Um, and I I I think I'm opening myself up to the idea to maybe just doing 20 lineups in the happy hour for the Cup Series race, which is just $20 worth of entry fees. Um, I think that's where I'm gonna land this week. Uh, I'm not sure how deep you want to drive into the driver bowl because we are recording this Thursday night. We don't know the starting order yet. Are there any, I guess, potential drivers to win the race or are there any values that you want to touch on before we dive into Playbook? Because the playbook is gonna be a collect a collective effort between you and myself this week. Correct. You know, you'll have your drivers that you'd like just based on, you know, track fit and and style. And then once we know the starting order, I will go forth Sunday morning and, and publish the playbook with, you know, good PD plays and just overall just solid plays based on where we saw qualifying.
Speaker 3 00:37:16 Yeah, I look, we touched on one, Corey Laroy I think is gonna be a popular budget play this week probably regardless of where he starts just because he tends to be fairly good at drafting type tracks. He ran pretty well here last year. He has these races circled on his calendar for cha for fair chances to win and punch a ticket to the playoffs. Um, guys I'm not overly enthused about playing with B Harrison Burton and Todd Gill, Todd Gilland, I, I just don't see them as providing a whole lot of, um, upside obviously depends on where they start but even so like I'm not even sure they really did all that much last year. I mean Todd Gillon, Todd Gillon had a decent July race. I'll grant them, I'll grant them that. Um, but Harrison Burton's not really on my radar this week. I'm not even sure I really like Noah Grason that much. Um, I think he's just out there churning laps at this point. Um, I'm not sure that we really have to go dumpster diving in the price tags to be honest. Um, sorry for the yawns there. Um, even though I'm on vacation, it's been a long week here <laugh> I think. So I built a lineup before the pod started that we both kind of feel pretty good about. Obviously we don't know starting spots but um, it's got 1200 bucks left over on dk
Speaker 2 00:38:58 Dude, just give it away. Give it away man. Give it away.
Speaker 3 00:39:01 It's a good, it's
Speaker 2 00:39:02 A good
Speaker 3 00:39:02 Build. I've got Cbell, Bowman, Truex, Eric Jones, Daniel Suarez and Lajoie and that leaves you with 1200 bucks and nobody's above 9,500 in that bill and nobody's below six grand in that bill. Yeah. So you can pretty solidly live in the mid-tier. Does it mean that we're completely avoiding guys who are 10 grand and above? No Chastain's 10 grand Logano is ten two Blaine. He's ten four. Kyle Bush is ten seven Byron's ten nine. I'd rather pay ten nine for Byron than 11. Two for Larson. Yeah. Um, you know, so you've got Harv in there in 9,300 and no, none of his previous Atlanta stats count. Also, by the way, awesome job for the All-Star race with the 29th throwback. Phenomenal. Um, I don't think the Denny and Chastain stuff matters this week. I I really don't. I think they, I trust them at their words and they buried the hatchet at Phoenix last week despite,
Speaker 2 00:40:05 And plus
Speaker 3 00:40:05 Getting, if they were,
Speaker 2 00:40:07 Well, if they were to continue that nonsense, you wouldn't do it at this track.
Speaker 3 00:40:12 No, it's, yeah cuz you're gonna take out a bunch of other people that you don't want. Like you'd rather just wait for either Coda or one of the three short tracks coming up after Coda <laugh> or one of the six intermediates left on the schedule. You know, something like that. Um, Baba's 8,300 bucks, which I think is a perfectly reasonable price. Very
Speaker 2 00:40:36 Good
Speaker 3 00:40:36 For him on a, basically a drafting track.
Speaker 2 00:40:40 Finished 13th here in the spring and finished this is, uh, 14th in the summer after he started 32nd.
Speaker 3 00:40:49 Yeah. I I don't know what to do about Josh Barry at 7,300 bucks. He went down,
Speaker 2 00:40:55 It'll depend on where he qualifies. Let's just leave it at that.
Speaker 3 00:40:58 He went down since the last two races in price on dk, he was eight grand the last two races. He's 7,300.
Speaker 2 00:41:08 I think it's just because DK didn't really know what to do for the last couple races because Yeah, it was great. Like the people that come up with the salaries for draftings, I'm imagining they're not, you know, big NASCAR watchers but it's just like they know he's in great equipment. It's, it's Chase Elliott's car. Uh, he's obviously not as good of a driver but he did get a top 10 last week.
Speaker 3 00:41:27 Right. But it's just interesting that it went down coming off a top 10 in the car that won this race last July. I can,
Speaker 2 00:41:34 I can't speak to it. <laugh> like it doesn't, doesn't,
Speaker 3 00:41:37 I don't know. <laugh>. Um, Elmar. It's a plate track. He's in play.
Speaker 2 00:41:42 Can I throw out some drivers?
Speaker 3 00:41:43 What
Speaker 2 00:41:44 Can I throw out some drivers? Yeah. Uh, I love the call at guys this week. Justin Haley and AJ Alman Dinger, uh, almond Dinger won a super Speedway race in the Xfinity series a year ago. Don't forget what Justin Haley did in the 2020 season.
Speaker 3 00:41:59 Like seven of these freaking things which <laugh> it's
Speaker 2 00:42:02 Insane. Uh, I think in 2020 for the Xfinity series we won three of the four races between Daytona and Talladega. Yeah. Uh, Haley alone finished seventh in the race last summer. You finished 11th year last fall. Those are gonna be really good pivots off the more Chalky Corey Laroy everybody including us, uh, will likely be writing up and touting Corey Lejo is a good play. Uh, the colleague boys AJ Alman Dinger and Justin Haley are really good tournament pivots off the more chalky option of Corey Laroy
Speaker 3 00:42:33 And Stenhouse will probably be reasonably popular considering the fact he won Daytona.
Speaker 2 00:42:39 Yeah, that's fair.
Speaker 3 00:42:40 Right? Like the last drafting race that dude won it. Yeah. Um, so obviously it's all gonna depend on where people start, but this is not a race in which I think everybody's in play. It's not like typical Daytona or Talladega where I think everybody's got this have to be in play. I think there's more refined strategy for this race then than a typical plate track.
Speaker 2 00:43:10 Uh, was there anything you wanted to touch on before we signed off?
Speaker 3 00:43:15 Uh, no. The schedule's gonna be a little wonky again this weekend. Um, I will have my betting pieces up on PIIs for f1. There is F1 this weekend. Uh, no dfs I won't have DFS coverage but congrats to DK for finally jacking up the price on Red Bull and ver happen. Uh, <laugh> it get very painful to play them and not fit other people. Um, it like first happens like I think 14,000 regularly and Red Bull's like 13 one or something. Like it's, they finally jacked it up cuz they may not lose this season. Um, they, they may not. And if you're playing, uh, Charles La Clare already has a 10 grid uh, penalty, 10 grid place penalty for having to take uh, equipment in the second race of the year. Congrats Ferrari on still being Ferrari. Um, but aside from that I'll have betting pieces for F1 n Cup up Friday. Uh, on picks wise, uh, the cup playbook is going to be a group effort between Dan and myself. So I will probably get the shell going. Um, you may see it up at some point Saturday. I might set it to publish at some point Saturday and then have, it'll be
Speaker 2 00:44:34 Up Sunday morning, I'm not gonna lie. It'll be up Sunday morning.
Speaker 3 00:44:36 Well no, cause my other suggestion was that you could just add to it when after qualifying and we'll get the initial thing up. Okay.
Speaker 2 00:44:44 Yeah, that's fine. Um,
Speaker 3 00:44:46 But updated, um, just, just the thought. He, Dan and I will continue to hammer this. It'll be up at some point this weekend, so just pay attention to it. It
Speaker 2 00:44:55 Will be up Sunday morning, 8:00 AM Eastern time at the latest. I, I tend to get up pretty early. Um, I've already set it in my, you know, own internal schedule like I'm, I cuz I'm coming back from two races on Saturday and I just know like I'm just gonna want to go to bed, but I will wake up at 4:00 AM just to finish, you know, the, the cup playbook for Sunday, uh, for truck and Xfinity. I guess the good thing is, is like whether qualifying is rained out Friday or not, we will know the starting order as of Friday night. So I will have a full truck playbook and court plays and I will have a full Xfinity playbook and court plays up Saturday by probably 10:00 AM Eastern time. So those two will be both ready full, uh, for you all to digest and start building your lineups.
Speaker 2 00:45:46 Um, I did want to add one thing, uh, from 1:00 PM Eastern Time to roughly 2:00 PM Eastern Time, uh, literally leading up to the race. I will probably be unavailable in Discord. I am going to be heading to the track trying to get settled in my seat. So for the truck race, I do apologize I won't be there just to help you all with your questions. I know Truck doesn't get a ton of traction, uh, but I'm gonna be basically heading to the track and just getting settled at the track in my seat with my beer for these races. Uh, so I'll be more available for the Xfinity Race. Uh, but I do apologize, but I will have everything available with no red updates. Everything you see Saturday morning should be set in stone pending drivers going to the rear.
Speaker 3 00:46:32 Yeah, uh, projections for Cup will probably be out Saturday evening. I will be home some point home as in Nebraska at some point mid-afternoon to early evening Saturday, depending on how long the drive takes, traffic, weather, all that good stuff. Um, so I will likely have projections out Saturday evening for the Cup race. Um, so it will be a little bit of a shorter schedule this weekend, apologies. But it is what it is, uh, with myself traveling. And then we'll be back to regular, uh, coverage for Koda, which is the weekend after we get the first road race of the year, which should be should be quite fun.
Speaker 2 00:47:16 All right, well Matt, it was kind of a longer podcast, but I, I feel like we, we hit on, hit on everything we wanted to. So thank you so much for your time. I know you're on vacation with your family. Uh, best of luck to you this week and best of luck to the FA Nation.
Speaker 3 00:47:29 Best of luck Nation.
