Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 Drivers start your engine.
Speaker 2 00:00:22 What's up FA Nation? It's Matt Sells here. I'm doing B NASCAR podcast solo this week. Thanks to, uh, some scheduling issues. Uh, we, we had with, uh, my normal co-host, so don't fret. There's quite a bit to go over, including the disaster of a race that Texas Motor Speedway was, um, and what we can expect from Talladega on, you know, coming up this Sunday. So first let's recap a little bit of Texas. Not a whole lot to talk about here. Just kidding. There's quite a lot. It wasn't your normal boring Texas race. We had tires blowing out everywhere. We had drama, we had rain delays in Texas. Um, all told the race took like, I don't know, felt like six and a half hours to finish. Um, and then we had yet another non playoff driver, uh, win a playoff race. That's the fourth straight playoff race, one by a non playoff driver.
Speaker 2 00:01:19 In fairness to Tyler Reddick, he was in the playoffs until he got eliminated at Bristol, uh, a week ago. So, um, you know, what is gonna come of all the drama? I'm not entirely sure, given that we have Talladega coming up, it's a little hard to, you know, intentionally wreck somebody at, at Talladega and wind up next to him and, and whatnot. But who knows? Maybe, maybe we see it. Maybe we see William Byron and Danny Hamley get into it again. Um, maybe Ty Gibbs decides to bump people under caution. Maybe Eric Jones gets back at Ty Gibbs. I don't know. It's kind of a lot going on here. Um, one thing we know for sure we should not see any tire issues this week at Talladega. We've run a Talladega race, um, earlier in the year. We've run quite a bit of plate races so far, in fact, five of them this year.
Speaker 2 00:02:12 Um, and so tire issues shouldn't really be an a, a problem this week, so that's good. Other than that pure chaos, we'll Rain Supreme this week at, at Talladega. Um, so just get used to that. Um, as for, you know, some news and notes that came out this week, uh, the key one that came out on Thursday is that Alex Bowman will not be in the 48 car this week. He is suffering from concussion like symptoms, um, from what did not look to be such a bad hit at Texas. But he said on the radio that that was the hardest hit he's ever taken. Keep in mind, he was in the hospital for a week, uh, after a wreck at a USAC car. Um, so the fact that just bumping the wall at Texas gave him concussions, that's, that's not great for the safety of this car.
Speaker 2 00:03:05 There's been a lot of talk about that this week between, uh, Kevin Har and Denny Hamlin leading the charge on that. Uh, we also saw Chase Elliot bump the wall at Texas and get fire in his, uh, inside the cockpit. The same issue that Kevin Hoick had that they all thought was fixed is clearly not fixed. So, um, safety has been a big topic of conversation this week. Um, but circling back to Alex Bowman, we will have Noah Grason in the 48 car this week. Um, and yes, we'll have a fill in in the 62 that Noah Grason was supposed to be driving. Um, if I remember correctly, uh, and let me double check on this here for you, um, as to who's in the 62, let me go ahead and look this up because I, I don't remember off the top of my head, um, exactly who is in that car.
Speaker 2 00:04:07 Um, let's see here. Looking at Sir Bob's Twitter feed, um, we will have just an allgeier. We'll be in the 62 car, so at least we get a Guy Cup experience, um, in that car. So hopefully that leads to a little bit of a better finish for the 62 team than they, uh, you know, may have been left with without gras in the car. So with that, we will turn our attention to Talladega here. Look, this is the, like I said, the sixth plate race of the year. We've had five of them already. So the strategy is pretty clear. Expect chaos build for every possible outcome. Uh, if we remember back at Daytona the last plate race, uh, we had people winning nearly a million dollars by hitting parlays of top 10 bets on guys like Cody, we and BJ McLeod and you know, folks like that, Cory La, Joy Land and Castle, folks like that.
Speaker 2 00:05:11 So, um, pure chaos can rain Supreme, um, like we had at Daytona, I think 27 drivers in the field and that race had a top 10 here. Um, we've probably got close to that uh, here this week. In fact, if we go ahead and look at our handy Dany data tables, um, we've got quite a few, quite a few drivers, um, that have top tens. Guys like Austin Cindrich and Chase Brisco don't yet have top tens, but they've only really raised here once or twice in their cup careers. Um, so Noah Grason raised here once, doesn't have a top 10 but did finish 20th. Um, so you know there is that, but we're, we're counting a handful of guys here in the back of the pack that don't have top tens. Like Corey La Joy has a top 10 here. Ross Chestain clearly does. Um, you know, even guys that washed out of the Cup series, like Ryan Priest managed a few top tens in his brief time racing a Talladega.
Speaker 2 00:06:16 So, um, expect pure chaos. This is a playoff race. There is obviously, uh, nobody locked into the round of eight yet cuz nobody's one. Um, and the points are pretty solidly compact. If we take a look at the standings, um, there, there's not a whole lot of wiggle room between the guy in first and the guy in 12th right now, which is pretty impressive. Um, to be perfectly honest, uh, one thing that did shake up the playoff standings this week is, uh, William Byron's penalty for spinning Denny Hamlin under caution. Um, when it was originally given there was a monetary fine but there was also 25 driver points taken away from William Byron would moved him from 17 above the cut line to eight below the cut line. If it stands, Hendrick Motorsports has in fact appealed the penalty. I have not yet seen a result of that appeal.
Speaker 2 00:07:21 So as for right now, Byron is 17 points to the good on the cutoff line. Um, but again, we're coming up to Talladega where anything can happen. Um, so you know, just, he basically is just trying to rack up stage points at this point and finish strongly, um, to negate any possible ramifications from the penalty, which is almost assuredly going to stick. Um, so you know, in terms of strategy, I don't think the playoff guys really have a strategy here except to avoid the big one. That's basically everybody's strategy. So for DFS it's not like, um, we've seen at, you know, intermediate tracks where they were trying to rack up stage points for some of them and then they would pit and then other guys would pit before the stage break so that they could be in position to win late. We're not gonna see a whole lot of that.
Speaker 2 00:08:19 We're gonna see a lot of manufacturers pitting with each other. You know, the Fords are gonna pit with each other. The Chevys are gonna pit with each other. Toyota will find one of those two to pit with so that they're not off cycle from like half the field. Um, and yeah, that's basically the strategy here, right? Stack the back, uh, play guys who are starting towards the back of the field and hope that they avoid the big one. Okay. Now in terms of if you are betting this race and you're betting a winner, which you don't always have to have the race winner in your, your lineup to win big at races like Daytona and Talladega and now Atlanta, however, if you are betting this race, most of the last 24 winners of this race have started in the top 20. Okay? I believe the only guy to start out of the top 20 of the last 24 winners was Denny Hamlin back in 2014, started 34th and won the race.
Speaker 2 00:09:21 The last two winners here have started 19th in Bubble Wallace, um, in this race a year ago. And Ross Chastain here earlier this year both started 19th and one. However, that being said, if we go back through the last 24 races here we have um, a vast majority of the winners are winning from inside the top 10. We got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15. Winners of the last 24 have come from inside the top 10. And that also doesn't include guys who started like 13 through one or 11th or 12th, which there's been a handful of those guys. So with that being said, if you're betting the race winner, there's still gonna come from the top 10 most likely. Uh, I saw earlier today Fank has uh, you know, bets where you can place the race winner comes from one through 10, 11 through 2021 through 30, 30 on back with different odds for those.
Speaker 2 00:10:32 Um, top 10 was going off at minus one 50. So they clearly know that most of the winners here come from the top 10 and winners from 11 through 20 was going off at plus 200. So you're still getting a pretty decent return for something that's happened a relatively big amount of time, like nine, nine times at the last 24 races or so. Um, or eight times I guess at the last 24 races. So it's happened a third of the time. That's pretty good odds for something that's happened 33% of the time. Um, so from a betting perspective, we want to bet winners who are starting in the top 10. Um, but for top 10 odds you can take guys who are starting further back, right? Everybody's got a shot at a top 10 at at a track like this. We saw that at Daytona.
Speaker 2 00:11:24 Um, unfortunately I'm not sure that sports books are letting you parlay those anymore cuz they got pretty well hammered by letting you parlay top 10 bets at Daytona, uh, a few races ago now. So check with the sports book. You prefer to see if they'll let you parlay top 10 bets. They may or may not. It's up to the sports book. Um, so with that being said, for DFS the general practices, we're gonna start one, maybe two guys starting in the top 20 and then we're gonna start everybody else starting 25th or worse. That's cash game builds almost assuredly going to at least put you in the money. You're not gonna win a whole lot of tournaments doing that cuz everybody does that for gpp. You can start a couple more guys starting closer to the front and just hope that they stay there. Hope that the playoff guys can manage the flow of the race and if they drop back that they survive the big one and then get back up uh, to the front and then you can start a few guys um, who may not be quite as good at plate races starting further back.
Speaker 2 00:12:30 Right there are, there are certainly a group of guys that are very good at plate races that will almost assuredly be starting further back in the field and everybody tends to know who those guys are, right? Ty Dylan is a very good plate racer who starts pretty far back. Um, Michael McDowell is a very good plate racer who starts pretty far back. Eric Jones tends to start kind of in the 20 range and is a very good plate racer. Um, you know, you've got some other guys in that, in that range too. Uh, co Joy is one of them. Um, and he'll be popular cuz he's coming off a very good run at Daytona. He also had a shot to win at Atlanta, so he's probably gonna be a pretty popular guy starting in the back, moving up landing castle's, another guy, um, who is typically around latent races to take advantage of, you know, wrecks.
Speaker 2 00:13:33 And lastly on the strategy part and then we'll actually get to a couple of the drivers here. You can leave quite a bit of money on the table this week. Um, I know Fano is a lot easier to do that with than Draft Kings. You'll see cash lineups on Fano that are leaving, I don't know, 30 plus thousand dollars on the table. Um, maybe more because if you look at the guys that are starting in the back of the pack on Fando, they're all in the $3,000 range. And so you could build a lineup that leaves like $35,000 on the table in cash and wins you money. It's happened before. Uh, for gpp you're not leaving that many that much money on the table for gpp, if you wanna have a shot at the optimal lineup, you're generally gonna leave about $8,000 on the table is usually the way it works out.
Speaker 2 00:14:18 Um, sometimes leaving 12,000 works, sometimes it's a little less. It kind of all depends on where people qualify, but generally speaking, to win big at gpp you're gonna leave about seven to $8,000 on the table, um, on both sites. So with that, let's turn our attention a little bit to the schedule. Um, things happen on track on Saturday practice doesn't really matter even if they have it, nobody's really gonna race or practice. Um, they just don't wanna take the shot of something going wrong with their car qualifying. It's gonna be single car qualifying so you know, they'll go out there, they'll turn a lap around the 2.66 mile track. Um, again, qualifying doesn't necessarily matter that much for DFS because it's basically a dark throw race for betting. It does because like I said, most of the winners here have won from inside the top 10.
Speaker 2 00:15:18 So if you get one of those crazy guys, um, you know, shocking qualifying lap who starts in the top 10 at longer odds, you might wanna take a shot on them. Nabbing a win here. So with that, uh, let's go ahead and, you know, prep you on when the stuff is gonna come out. Uh, we'll have the starting grid video out on Friday morning. We'll touch on some interesting bets and what that means for DFS and that one we'll have the be piece out on picks wise on Friday for both NASCAR and f1. We do get F1 coming back this weekend. It's in Singapore, it's in night race. Uh, it will mess with your sleep schedule so if you choose to do that, great. There's also an NFL game in London, so we're all over the map in time zones this weekend. Um, so we've got F1 practice on Friday, Friday morning and then later in the morning for FP two.
Speaker 2 00:16:16 We've got practice and qualifying for F1 on Saturday morning, early morning for qual for practice and then qualifying is kind of mid-morning. Um, and then we've got qualifying for cup on Saturday afternoon at Talladega. Um, so we'll have the F1 playbook will be out Saturday, uh, probably about lunchtime or so, Uh, maybe a little after. And then the playbook for Talladega will be out early Saturday afternoon cuz uh, again, I've actually already started it. I'm recording this on Thursday evening. Uh, I've already started writing the the cut playbook cuz it doesn't really matter where guys qualify, so there you go. Um, and then while price picks out Sunday morning like we normally do, we have the writeup out then. Um, and you know, being discord most of the weekend, I do have a, my daughter has a soccer game on Sunday. I will try and be on Discord through my phone while that's happening.
Speaker 2 00:17:16 We'll see how well that works. Um, now let's quickly touch on a few drivers here that I do like this week. Um, yes, everybody isly, it's pretty much that simple but there are a few guys that are better here. Um, then Daytona and vice versa. One of those guys is Denny Hamlin. Denny Hamlin is very good at Daytona. He's not quite as good at Talladega. He is, he does ever win in the last six races here. He does have four top tens in the last six races here, but he doesn't have the multitude of wins that he has at Daytona. And in the last three Talladega races he's finished 32nd, seventh and 18th. So he's lost a little bit of the luster. Um, and we'll have to see exactly how he's going to drive this week knowing he's pretty pissed about what happened to him with Byron.
Speaker 2 00:18:11 He's also pretty pissed about the safety of the car. So anybody wanting to avoid Big Rex, uh, may be a little bit more tentative this week. We'll have to see. But Denny Hamlin is a guy who is a little lackluster Talladega but is very, very good at Daytona. So we can't just compute what he does at Daytona and bring it to Talladega. Doesn't really hold as much weight. Uh, couple of guys who are opposite of that. Ryan Blaney has been okay at Daytona, but he's been very good at Talladega. He's got a couple of wins in the last six races. Um, both of which by the way are by the small slimmest margin at the track ever. Um, and for whatever reason Talladega just fits him better than Daytona. Yes, he's finished second a couple of times at Daytona. Um, his average finish at Talladega has been very, very good.
Speaker 2 00:19:08 Um, and he's hit the, uh, the top ten four times in the last six races. Two of those have been wins. Other guy is his teammate. Joey Lagano has been far better at Talladega than he has been at Daytona. That being said, Joey Lano is at a bad run at Talladega the last five of the last six races in one of those races he finished third and the other ones he's finished 11th or worse, including twice worse than 32nd. So he's a little bit more of a crapshoot. However, most of his plate wins have come at Talladega and not Daytona. So, you know, if, if you're looking for a guy who people might be a little bit off, Joey Lagano might be that guy. He is expensive this week, he's ten two on dk but again, salary doesn't necessarily matter. We're looking for a little bit of leverage.
Speaker 2 00:20:05 Joey Lagano might be a guy to get you that leverage. Um, Chase Elliot is a guy who we don't normally think of as a very good plate racer, but to be honest, he's finished very well in plate races this year. Um, if we go back to the Coke Zero Sugar 400, he wrecked outta that one, that one was his first bad plate race this year. Um, you know, it it, it's been kind of shocking to be honest because we don't necessarily think of him as a guy who is good at plate racing, but he did win at Atlanta. Sure, shorter track whatnot. Not a full plate race, but it does count as a plate race. Um, he did finish seventh at Talladega earlier this year. Um, and if we keep going, we've got finishing sixth at the first Atlanta race. Um, and then the Daytona 500 you finished 10th.
Speaker 2 00:21:06 So basically all of them except for the last Daytona race, he's finished in the top 10 including a win. So that might be a guy we wanna look at, even though he doesn't have um, you know, the greatest history at Talladega, but he has been getting better in each of the last three races. He finished 24th than 18th and seventh. So he's bringing a little bit more, uh, consistency to talent Dega. Um, you know, to be honest, I'm not sure what to do with William Byron this week. Usually he's pretty decent. He's a pretty decent plate racer. I don't know what um, his little spat with Denny Hamlin will bring this week if it'll bring any. Um, so that, that's a guy who I'm not a hundred percent sure what to do with, um, keeping it in the Hendrick garage. Noah Grayson's in the race in the 48 car, which is clearly an equipment upgrade.
Speaker 2 00:22:07 My only problem is that he has been open and honest in comments on the record saying that he doesn't really want to be in a cup car the rest of this year because he does not want to risk, um, his Xfinity Championship run because of the safety concerns in the cup car. And now he's gonna be in a cup car at a plate race. So if you're running scared at Talladega, you're probably not gonna do all that well, but I think he's probably worth sprinkling in some GDP lineups just in case his tentative nature and the race actually keeps him out of trouble. Um, not a hundred percent confident in that recommendation, but can you be a hundred percent confident Talladega and take it for what it's worth? Um, Andy's also surprisingly cheap, like he's cheaper than landing Castle this week. Um, that's, that's pretty impressive.
Speaker 2 00:23:02 Um, you know, if we keep going, yeah, the mid tier is gonna be where a lot of guys live. You got guys like Ricky Stanhouse, Michael McDowell, um, Eric o Morros got a win here. Chase Brisco has been hit and miss at, at Plate Tracks. Austin Dylan is known to be a good plate racer. Obviously Brad Klowski at 7,400 is in that group, but you know, if, if we're talking about some guys that might fly a bit under the radar here, it's, it's hard to find them to be honest because again, anybody can win here. Everybody's in play so it's a little hard to go say, well this guy's gonna be a leverage play against the field or or whatnot. Um, but typically speaking the Toyota guys have a tougher time in plate races than the Chevy or Ford guys simply cuz there's fewer of them.
Speaker 2 00:24:04 Uh, so it's harder to find teammates to work with. It's harder on pit strategy cuz there's only six of them pitting at one time. So they've gotta pit properly with either the Fords or the Chevys. Um, but you know, that being said, a guy that I'm not, that I've been high on for the last few weeks, that I'm not necessarily that high on this week as Christopher Bell, he's proven not to be that great of a plate racer this year. He's finished 34th at Daytona, He finished 23rd at Atlanta. Um, he finished 22nd at Talladega the first time around and that was starting on the pole. Uh, then when you get to the next Atlanta race, he finished 19th. Um, and then you get to the Coke zero sugar 400. He started fifth and finished 36th. So he's been in the wrong place at the wrong time every time.
Speaker 2 00:24:58 And that's not great when we're talking about plate races. Um, so that's a guy who I've been on for the last few weeks that I'm now not really that high on this week. Uh, BBA Wallace is clearly in play despite the negativity rating that he apparently has on Twitter based on Jenna Fryer's poll release. Um, not a whole lot of people like B Wallace, but people like him when he wins plate races, which he does again, he has a win here. He's run very well at plate races. This is a week where he'll be quite popular. He's also $8,900 on dk. So, um, that's a bonus. Other than that, we'll have to uh, you know, check out the playbook, see the plays again, everybody's kind of in play this week. I'm probably gonna tell you every lineup is good if you ask me for lineup setups on Discord simply because it's likely a crap shoot.
Speaker 2 00:25:59 There's not really any weather in play this weekend. Luckily the hurricane has missed them. Hopefully everybody in the path of the hurricane that you know is safe in sound. Um, but there's not really any weather concerns. It's gonna be the same old Talladega. You might get a little bit of tentative racing through the first two stages, but I pretty well predict the stage three is gonna be a pretty wild affair if that does in fact happen. If it's slow building in the first two stages. Stage three is gonna be nuts if they just get out there and go full bore. First stage is gonna be nuts. The other two will be a little bit, uh, more tame until there's about I don't 20 live to go. And then you'll see a rush of cautions cuz people start fighting for positions. So with that we are gonna end a pretty brief, uh, NASCAR pod this week.
Speaker 2 00:26:53 And again, look for the content that's coming out. We got the starting grid video coming out. Playbook, projections, uh, I'll be in Discord, we got prize picks. Example lineups will be out Sunday. Um, and of course the F1 content is raising in Singapore Max for stepping as a shot to clench the world championship, uh, depending on how things fall in Singapore. And that's right, he would clinch it with like five or six races to go in the season. So, uh, with that look for the F1 content, NASCAR content and uh, we'll see in the Green FA Nation.
