I’m going to be a little more brief with the XFIN intro than I was for the Truck Playbook intro for this week. Everything can pretty much translate to this race. You still want to nail the right PD plays while also taking some risks on lower owned guys to try and nail the optimal lineup. Now Saturday’s Xfinity race will have six more laps than the Truck Series race (for a total of 48) but that still doesn’t give us a ton of dominator points to work with; only 33.6 total and that’s if they run zero laps under caution which we know won’t happen. That’s why it’s important to get the winner of the race in your lineup, in addition to the right PD plays, and one or two lower owned guys that really help you strike gold in GPP’s. Cash games are certainly in play today so let’s get to the drivers I like for Saturday.
Practice Results
Driver Pool
A.J. Allmendinger ($10,500; Starting P4) Without question, he’s the best road course driver in this race. No Austin Cindric this year, and Kyle Busch ran this race last year and won it. But Dinger is the clear-cut favorite to win this week because of his elite road course experience. Last year he won Mid-Ohio and the Roval in Xfinity and he won the Indy Road Course race at the Cup level. Even at last year’s Daytona Road Course race, he was in contention at the end of stage one until a wreck (that I believe he takes the blame for) took him out of contention. But even in 2020 he was fourth at Indy Road Course, second at Road America, fourth at Daytona Road Course, and he won at the Roval. He knows what he’s doing at these courses so I cannot recommend fading him in any capacity.
Ty Gibbs ($10,400; Starting P1) This is a tough price to pay for Gibbs and he really does need to go wire-to-wire to really pay off the price tag. If we’re talking previous momentum, he won Vegas and Atlanta but he didn’t necessarily do it in dominating fashion. But wins are wins. In his very first race in Xfinity last year he won Daytona Road Course while being priced below $6,000 (gone are those days). Later in the season he’d go on to win Watkins Glen. So he has a pair of road course wins, but he also has some poor performances from last season due to mechanical issues and late race issues that cost him track position. I’m not going to be loading up on him in Cash games, but he’s certainly worth throwing into GPP lineups.
Noah Gragson ($9,900; Starting P12) Gragson didn’t have a great showing here a year ago. The weather sucked all weekend for all three races and remember, it was a rough start to the year for Gragson in 2021. Remember when he fell multiple laps down early at Daytona Road Course because he couldn’t fire up the car at the start of the race? He still managed to scratch and claw his way back to the lead lap in stage three before wrecking. Even last year at COTA he finished dead last after his ride was junked on the 13th lap with an engine issue. But this is a different Gragson and while he’s never won a road course race, he certainly isn’t terrible at them. He has a pair of top five’s in his career at Indy’s Road Course, he’s finished in the top six in all three of his races at the Roval, he’s finished 4th, 6th, and 9th at Road America, a pair of top ten’s at Watkins Glen, and he has a top five at Mid-Ohio. Like I said, no wins but he’s relatively consistent and finishes well. What will draw people to Gragson this week will be the PD he offers. He can land 46 points if he finishes in the top five. That’s not 5X value, but remember we alter the meaning of “value” on road courses. His car looked fine in practice, he just fell outside the top five in his qualifying group so we’ll take advantage of the PD.
Daniel Hemric ($9,700; Starting P19) I’m hoping Hemric has been trying to learn as much as possible from the grand master of road courses, A.J. Allmendinger. Hemric isn’t terrible on road courses but he has no wins, which is the case for his entire racing history with the exception of the finale of 2021. Given where Hemric is starting, it’s entirely possible he finishes as one of the top five scorers on today’s slate. A top ten alone would be 43 points and he can easily exceed that expectation. He wasn’t incredible in practice, but I really won’t invest much stock in his speed. I still have faith he can finish well here. He has back-to-back top three finishes at the Roval, he finished second at Road America last year, and he was third at Daytona Road Course last year.
Brandon Jones ($9,100; Starting P38) For what it’s worth, Brandon Jones chalk NEVER works out. Will he be in my Cash lineup? Sure, I’m a bit of a masochist in that regard and am ready to be disappointed. I’m mostly playing him because I know ownership will likely be high on him and even if he busts then I still have a chance to Cash if he’s heavily owned. He’ll return 61 points with a top 15 finish. Jones has back-to-back top five finishes on Daytona Road Course, he was fourth last year at Mid-Ohio, fifth last year at the Roval, and sixth at Watkins Glen. Mixed into his road course resume are some terrible results as well. So while he’s not a road course ringer he did pretty well last year and the PD is obviously there.
Miguel Paludo ($8,900; Starting P17) This is one of those drivers that may not have a ton of ownership on Saturday, but on paper is a very solid play. Paludo ran three races last year with Jr. Motorsports: Daytona Road Course (Finished 7th), COTA (Finished 34th), and Mid-Ohio (Finished 27th). Only one notable result as you can see. However, baked into the race data we find that Paludo was better than where he finished for the last two races. At COTA, he had an average running position of 17th, and at Mid-Ohio he had an average running position of 21st. Now all this is to say that at this price tag, we do need him to be better than a top 15 driver. Realistically we should be seeking a top ten finish. If he were starting further back we could give him a longer leash, but the starting spot/salary could give us some leverage in GPP’s.
Sheldon Creed ($8,700; Starting P6) This is an incredibly difficult starting spot to play Creed but he’s been fast in whatever equipment he’s been in this weekend. He won the pole for the Truck race, although he’ll likely drop to the rear, and he was second-fastest in practice for Xfinity and qualified well. Creed was a fairly impressive road course driver in the Truck series and I’m optimistic it carries over to Xfinity so I have no problem mixing him into my GPP builds today.
Josh Berry ($7,900; Starting P25) Berry is too cheap for JRM equipment. AND he’s offering PD. Ownership will be heavy and deservedly so. We saw him grab a top ten at Mid-Ohio last year, but that was the extent of his 2021 road racing experience at Xfinity. Either way, aside from the two superspeedway-style races we’ve seen from him this year he’s been solid at the other tracks. A top ten finish would give him 49 points on the day. If you can afford him, Riley Herbst is an okay option today for just $200 more. Truthfully I won’t play a ton of Herbst but I’ll get some shares. The PD is there, but I’m not in love with the road course resume.
Jeremy Clements ($6,800; Starting P26) Clements hasn’t been awful this year aside from the superspeedway races we’ve seen. We just haven’t been getting much exposure because of the fact he’s been starting too high. But this week he’s a great DFS play on a style of track he thrives at. In the limited two-race sample size at Daytona Road Course, he was top ten in both races, he was 12th at the Roval last year, he’s finished top 15 in both Indy Road Course races, and let’s not forget he won Road America back in 2017 marking his lone career win. He’s on a small team so there is some risk. But we’re getting a very good road course driver at an affordable price tag. I think a decent pivot in this range might be Brandon Brown at $6,400 starting right behind Clements. But in Cash games, in this range, I’d rather pay up for Clements or go down to Ryan Sieg and eat that chalk. Brown is a decent pivot for GPP’s but I don’t feel as confident in him on road courses as I do Clements.
Ryan Sieg ($6,200; Starting P35) This is an egregious price for Sieg. Similar to Jones he’ll be very popular in Cash and GPP contests based on the price tag and PD opportunities. As always there are risks with Sieg as he’s an aggressive driver and a bit of a gambler. But he squeezes out the best from his car and Saturday should be no different. In five races so far this year he’s finished 11th or better four times. Truthfully, a top 20 would be plenty to get us in the green but he can push this ride to a top 15 for sure. He’s not an incredible road course driver but he was top ten last year at Mid-Ohio and top 20 at Watkins Glen. Other than that he’s only had a handful of top 20 finishes in his career at road courses. But he’s still too cheap with this kind of PD for me to pass up in Cash games.
Jeb Burton ($6,100; Starting P20) This is just a disrespectful price tag for Burton. We’ve seen him routinely in the mid-$7K range on DraftKings and he’s now way down in arguably “punt” range. He hasn’t finished worse than 20th this year despite the equipment downgrade for 2022. But we’ve seen him finish well at road courses previously and he was top ten in practice speed if that means anything to you.
Sage Karam ($5,600; Starting P24) I want to go back to Karam this week. I’m aware he busted last week and was an awful call. But I want to give him one more shot. I have a little faith in the Alpha Prime Equipment and Karam has a bit of a road course background. Here’s why I think most of the field falls off Karam this week. He raced at the Charlotte Roval and Indy Road Course last year and finished 25th and 26th. Not great, right? However, he had an average running position of 16th at Indy and an average running position of 12th at the Roval. And he did that in Jordan Anderson equipment. If he stays clean and doesn’t fade late in the race, this could very well be a driver that separates your GPP lineups from the field. I’m just hoping ownership isn’t too heavy for today’s race.
Ryan Vargas ($4,800; Starting P34) Vargas will be the cheap punt most flock to if they need salary relief. He’s hit or miss; he either finishes top 25-30 and doesn’t kill your lineup or he wrecks and probably hurts your ceiling a bit. He had mechanical issues yesterday and didn’t practice. That’s kind of the case with him sometimes. You can take a gamble here and he does have a few top 20 finishes on road courses in his career. We just need him to finish the race and move up a few spots along the way. I’d be happy if he finished 28th and got us 20 points. Anything over that would be gravy.
DGM Racing – DGM this weekend will be comprised of Ross Chastain ($10,000; Starting P2), Alex Labbe ($6,500; Starting P5), and Preston Pardus ($6,600; Starting P7). This is a “play at your own risk” recommendation. I will have each in at least one lineup. In the cases of Pardus and Labbe you just hope they hold their position. At Chastain’s price tag you really need him to win to probably be optimal. But these cars were very fast during practice and they all qualified very well. We shouldn’t be too surprised considering DGM can sets up cars very well for road courses. They’re all GPP plays, but worth a sprinkle for sure.
Cole Custer and Bubba Wallace – I won’t go too in depth on these two drivers. Will I be mixing them in? Sure, but I can’t say I’ll be building around them or featuring them. In Bubba’s case he has PD on his side and we know the JGR equipment will be very good. But he isn’t a great road course driver, but I like the effort he’s putting in to try and get better at these tracks by getting some extra practice. In Custer’s case, I’ll certainly get exposure to the 07-car because we saw how awesome it was a month ago when he won in this ride. But at the same time, he’s kind of like Daniel Hemric. He’s okay on road courses, but nothing stellar. And Hemric’s offering more PD. I prefer these two in GPP’s.
Example Lineups
The Example Lineups will be published separately around 12:00pm ET with the Truck Example Lineups.
Don’t miss out on the Playbooks for today’s action as well as everything else we’re offering for this weekend’s action in Austin, Texas!