🔥Written by 2020 FBWC and 2021 KoS qualifier @joejets19

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Pennzoil 400 🏁

This NASCAR season started off on the right foot with two fantastic races, now the next gen car is confronted with its biggest test to date, a low-tire wear intermediate track. This Sunday afternoon, Las Vegas Motor Speedway will host the Pennzoil 400. The track is located 15 miles Northeast of the Las Vegas Strip in Clark County, NV. It is a 1.5 mile, progressively banked, tri-oval that has produced some lackluster races in recent history. This will be our first look at the next gen car at a cookie cutter track and if it can produce another race like we saw last week, we will be in for a wild 2022.

On to Las Vegas!

Scoring Breakdown

At this point, we know how the DK scoring system works, so let's see how many points are available this week:

Laps Led Points =0.25 points per lap led. This week, 267 laps will be run and 66.75 DK points will be awarded (plus any overtime laps).

Place Differential Points = 1 point per position gained or -1 point per position lost.

Fastest Lap Points = 0.45 points per lap not run under caution (roughly 220 laps should run under the green flag for a total of 90 possible DK points).

Finishing Position Points: The 40th place driver receives 4 points, and for each position gained, another point is awarded (39th=5, 38th=6…) and the winner gets 46 points.

Lineup Construction 🏁

Last week's race at Auto Club had the most cautions and lead changes in any 400 mile race in the track's history. While that was great for TV, it was completely gut-wrenching for DFS purposes because we rely on predictability. I think, for the time being, we will really need to focus on lineup construction, rather than individual plays, to give us the most opportunities for success. What that means is we need to decide on how we want to attack a slate, and then allocate our ownerships on the drivers we think can fill in those roles. For example, there is generally one major dominator that leads more than 100 laps at Las Vegas, and he generally starts in the top 10 . A secondary dominator can also emerge, leading between 40-70 laps but that driver must finish well to make the perfect lineup. Now knowing that dominators are important, and that there has been an increased level of chaos early in the season, I would suggest opening up our dominator pool a bit to include drivers we usually wouldn't consider. Last year, I would lock Larson into 80-90% of lineups because it is highly probable that he runs away with the race. This year, the GPP play may actually be going slightly underweight on Larson to allow us to spend on drivers with a high floor and then sprinkle in some drivers that could find themselves up front (i.e. Jones and Reddick last week). I think early in the season we should focus on building lineups with a solid floor and having exposure to multiple dominators in the hopes that our floor drivers get us close to the cash line and then we hit the right combination of dominators in a lineup of two (similar to a DFS baseball strategy). Of course, this strategy can be entirely flipped on its head if a chalky dominator shows up with a rocket ship but that is why I wouldn't suggest a full fade on anyone in our dominator pool.

Stage 1: 80 laps, Stage 2: 85 laps, Stage 3: 102 laps

Lineup Foundation Targets

Kyle Busch ($10,200 DK, $12,000 FD)

This is more or less a no-brainer cash play but sometimes there is no reason to overthink things. Busch caught the wall in practice and will need to go to a backup car on Sunday, which took away his ability to qualify so he will start (and be scored) from 37th. Now there has been a ton of talk since practice about how this backup will not be what people are used to and is pretty much pieces of salvaged cars thrown together, but I will still take a Joe Gibbs Racing back up over most of the field's primary car. Even if Busch can't replicate his 9th best single lap time or his 14th best 5 lap average from practice, all we need him to do is be patient and meander his way into the top 15 over 267 laps. If Kyle can make it into the top 10, which he has done in 7 of his last 10 races here, that would almost guarantee a perfect lineup appearance.

Kurt Busch ($8,900 DK, $9,200 FD)

Kurt Busch was actually able to make a qualifying run on Saturday but still finds himself starting 31st. This will be the second race in a row Kurt has had to fight his way through traffic due to a slow qualifying time but he proved he was up to the task last weekend riding from 36th to 8th. Busch has been fairly successful at Las Vegas with three top eight finishes in his last six races here including a win. Kurt is cheap enough that we do not need him to win or even crack the top 5 to pay off his salary. I am banking on Busch drawing from the last race's experiences to help propel him to the front of the field.

Tournament Targets

Joey Logano ($10,800 DK, $13,000 FD)

In the lineup construction section, I touched upon expanding our dominator pool in the even the laps led are more spread out than they have been in the past, and going overweight on a driver like Logano is a good example of that strategy. Logano is starting 6th on Sunday, but he has proven in the past that he does not need to start in the front row to lead laps or win. Joey actually has two wins in the last six races here and had an average starting position of 7.5 in those two races. He has also led 46 or more laps in four of the last seven races at Las Vegas. Logano will need to win or lead a nice chunk of laps to make the perfect lineup but I think he is better suited than most to be a significant dominator.

Brad Keselowski ($8,400 DK, $9,000 FD)

I have not talked about it much so far but DK pricing has been a bit soft for this race and Keselowski is definitely one of those drivers that is drastically underpriced. Keselowski is starting 15th on Sunday and has proven in the past that he doesn't need to start well at Las Vegas to turn in an impressive race. Kes is coming off of twelve top 7 finishes in his last thirteen starts including three wins. While I don't expect a win for Kes on Sunday, he should be in the mix and I would not be surprised if he picked up a couple of laps led en route to a top 5 finish.

Bargain Basement

Ty Dillon ($5,600 DK, $4,500 FD)

Dillon starts 34th on Sunday, the worst starting position he has ever had in Las Vegas. Ty tends to run very well here with an average finish of 23.17 and even has tournament-winning upside with two top 16 finishes in his last three races here. Dillon is a safe, inexpensive play to build around in cash and tournaments.

Other Drivers To Consider

Here are 3 more drivers I like at Las Vegas that have a chance to make some noise in no particular order:

Kyle Larson ($11,300 DK, $14,500 FD)

Alex Bowman ($8,700 DK, $9,700 FD)

Austin Cindric ($7,700 DK, $8,000 FD)

Top Driver to Avoid

Chase Briscoe ($6,900 DK, $7,000 FD)

This play did not work last week with Erik Jones but I'm going to try it again with Briscoe. Chase was lightning fast in qualifying and as a result, will be starting 4th on Sunday. Unlucky for him, he only ran the 15th best single laps time and 24th best 5 lap average in practice. Briscoe is starting way further forward than he should and has a ton of fast cars around him. I expect chase to fall out of the top 10 pretty quickly.

Pitstop Picks

Put the bonus pick in the chat last week and it pushed us into the green.

4-2 (+3.7u)

Bell has one Cup finish better than 24th at Las Vegas and Joe Gibbs has a weird overheating issue last week. Austin Dillon has only one top 10 finish in his last nine Las Vegas races and he realistically should finish between 10-15. Kurt Busch is starting way too far back, any slip-up will put him several laps down. Cindric has four straight top 6 finishes during his Xfinity career here. He starts 3rd on Sunday and has already proven he can hang inside the top 10 in the big series.

This is going to be a close one but every metric in the cheatsheet favors Logano. My model predicts him to have a 3rd place finish, 6th place average finish, 3rd place ceiling, and 12th place floor. Busch, however, is projected to finish 9th, an average finish of 10.7, a ceiling finish of 4th, and a floor of 37th. Sometimes you have to trust the computers.

Thanks for reading and good luck this weekend! Be sure to join me in the LineStar NASCAR chat!

Be sure to download the Pennzoil 400 cheatsheet and find me on Twitter Good Luck!