Finally we’re back at a track I’m comfortable playing for DFS. Bristol last week was typical Bristol. Ross Chastain provided PD, but just not enough unfortunately. Last week proved to us that you don’t necessarily need to be in the playoffs to still win the race as Sam Mayer (who turned 17 in June) got the win after coming close to winning at Gateway a month or two ago. We’re back at Vegas tonight, a 1.5-mile track that typically doesn’t see too many cautions. However, we’re under much different circumstances at the moment and we should take previous races here with a grain of salt. They ran at Vegas earlier in the year, which Kyle Busch flat out dominated by winning and leading over 100 laps so I’m not exactly sure what we can take away from that race. But we have 134 laps tonight, which means we have 100 dominator points on the table. If you factor in caution laps and things of that nature, we’re looking at less than 100 points, but still a race where we could see a dominator or two. Track position is key here as we don’t typically see a ton of tire wear. My apologies for the smaller write-up. I'll have a more thorough piece for the Xfinity race which has slightly better contests than the Truck series. I’m keeping a tight driver pool this week as I’m playing it light (maybe 20 lineups in the Happy Hour), but these are the drivers I’m looking at.

Driver Pool

Brett Moffitt ($11,100; Starting P1) Moffitt’s on the pole, which means there are opportunities for dominator points. He gets a big price bump because of he’s of the starting position, and he’s shown plenty of times this season that he can collect dominator points. In eight of his last nine races he’s led double-digit laps and had fastest laps along the way. If you get that clean air you’ll likely see a driver accumulate both. He has a solid resume at Vegas as well. The price tag does push me to go lighter than normal on Moffitt. Remember at Darlington when he was $8,900 on the pole? He finished 10th but dominated enough laps to still get close to 7X value. But Vegas is normally kind to the polesitter… If your name is Kyle Busch. It doesn’t necessarily guarantee dominator points for other drivers as we’ve seen in non-KB Vegas Truck races, but with Moffitt’s resume we’ll take some shots.

Zane Smith ($10,100; Starting P7) Zane had a pretty impressive run here back in February where he started P15 and finished sixth. I don’t quite understand the price bump since the results haven’t been great for him recently, but in a track where we may not see many cautions or tire wear, we might be able to see him get some laps led if he can work his way to the front. I don’t like him in Cash games, but he’s on the table in GPP’s.

Dylan Lupton ($9,300; Starting P34) We haven’t seen Lupton race in 2020 in the Truck series, but he just signed a three-race deal with DGR (Tanner Gray’s team) to race at Vegas, Texas, and Phoenix. He’ll be in the 17-truck this weekend and he has a lot of position differential. Sure, there may be some rust, but in 2020 it wouldn’t be surprising if he came out and got a Top 10. He did so last year when he started P17 and finished tenth. He’ll have more work to do to repeat that, but a Top 15 finish will return 5X value.

Ben Rhodes ($8,900; Starting P8) In five of his last six races here, Rhodes hasn’t finished worse than eighth and he got a Top 5 finish here back in February. He also won the September Vegas race three years ago and he typically gets PD. This is a nice price tag for a driver who has a little PD on his side, can get to the front to lead laps, and has won a race recently. At under $9K on DraftKings Rhodes is becoming one of my favorite plays tonight.

Tyler Ankrum ($8,300; Starting P2) I might go heavier than normal on Ankrum tonight. He’s a huge fan favorite and he’s coming off a pretty impressive run last week at Bristol. He comes in with seven straight Top 12 finishes and while that isn’t all that great considering he’s starting P2, he’s a nice leverage play in single-entry GPP’s with most of the field being on Moffitt. And Moffitt probably gets the jump on Ankrum in the beginning, but I think the probability that he goes backward puts people off him so low ownership is a possibility. And he’s not a bad driver by any means. He’s still young and is competing against guys with much more experience. I’m on board for GPP’s on Friday.

Spencer Davis ($7,200; Starting P32) Davis carries some risk. On a good day he’s a Top 20 driver, but he’s had some stinkers lately as well. But at Kentucky he started P31 and was $9,200 so we’ll take the heavy discount here. He’s also never finished worse than 18th here with a pair of Top 15 finishes as well. All he needs is a Top 20 finish to return 5X value, which I can get on board with today, especially in Cash games.

Austin Wayne Self ($6,700; Starting P26) We stan hard for this guy. He’s always a favorite GPP play, but he doesn’t come without risk. He will either return 5X value or 2X value. He’s all over the spectrum. It’s weird because in each of the last two Vegas races he’s started 26th and finished 17th. If he repeats that performance then that’s 36 points and over 5X value. In seven races here he’s never finished worse than 21st and he tends to move up well here with an average starting position of 23.1 and an average finish of 16.4. I’m even considering him in Cash games as crazy as that sounds.

Chase Purdy ($6,400; Starting P17) I like Chase this week, but I don’t love him. I think I’d much rather pay up for a couple drivers listed above. But he’s in the 24-truck Friday night, which has been a great ride. Sam Mayer drove it to victory lane last week at Bristol. We haven’t seen Purdy in the Truck series in almost two months and the results were never great. But the ride still is and the starting spot isn’t awful. But I’m not entirely confident he can finish in the Top 15 because he’s just as likely to finish outside the Top 25. I’ll mix him in some GPP builds though.

Clay Greenfield ($5,300; Starting P22) Greenfield doesn’t have the most glamorous resume at Vegas, but it’s also been eight years since he raced here. Given that this can be a safer/boring race we’ll take advantage of the price tag as a cheap punt. In five of his last six races he’s finished 23rd or better. That’s okay in hindsight, but at this price you’re just looking for about 22-25 points on DraftKings. If he holds his position he’ll get you 22 points. If he moves up just a couple spots and finish 20th that’ll be 26 points.

Other Drivers In Play: Sheldon Creed is a great option per usual, especially as a pivot off Moffitt. But in the last four races he’s been priced over $10K and he only hit value once. Even at Darlington he led a bunch of laps but finished 18th. There’s obvious risk here. But I’m also looking at Grant Enfinger who has looked very strong lately, and Todd Gilliland has a good resume at Vegas. Stewart Friesen is in play for GPP’s. It looked like he shook off the bad luck from earlier in the year and then he made me look like an idiot last week at Bristol. I’m also playing around with exposure to Austin Hill, Tanner Gray, Conor Daly (Indy Car driver making Truck debut), Tyler Hill, Ryan Truex, and Tate Fogleman per usual. I might play Travis Pastrana. I know he technically hit 5X value at Kansas, but remember he was having a ton of issues early on in that race and fell down multiple laps early. He lucked into a 22nd-place finish because so many drivers ahead of him wrecked out or had mechanical issues. At his price tag I’m a little nervous about rostering him, but I may throw him into a GPP build or two.

DraftKings Example Lineups

The EXAMPLE lineups are meant to show different roster constructions that are made with drivers from the Playbook. These are not meant to be plugged and played.

DraftKings Cash

  1. Brett Moffitt
    1. Sheldon Creed (Pivot)
  2. Dylan Lupton
  3. Ben Rhodes
    1. Derek Kraus (Pivot)
  4. Stewart Friesen
    1. Conor Daly (Pivot)
  5. Spencer Davis
  6. Clay Greenfield
    1. Austin Wayne Self (Pivot)

I’m not in love with the build featuring the pivots. But I definitely feel like Moffitt/Lupton/Davis/Greenfield are a good Cash Core to build around.

DraftKings GPP

  1. Sheldon Creed
  2. Ben Rhodes
  3. Matt Crafton
    1. Raphael Lessard (Pivot)
  4. Conor Daly
  5. Spencer Davis
  6. Austin Wayne Self
    1. Ryan Truex (Pivot)