Following Kevin Harvick‘s victory at Bristol, NASCAR heads back west to Las Vegas. The second round of the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs commences in the desert with the South Point 400. Therefore, let’s jump into this week’s NASCAR DFS preview for DraftKings and FanDuel.
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Playoff Roundup
Proceeding Bristol, four drivers were eliminated from the NASCAR Cup Playoffs. Namely; Cole Custer, William Byron, Matt Dibenedetto, and Ryan Blaney will no longer be competing for the 2020 championship.
With a new round comes a second points reset. Kevin Harvick sits atop the standings with 3067 points while Denny Hamlin trails by 19 and Brad Keselowski by 32. The names to be aware of this weekend are drivers sitting sevenththrough 12th as just 8 points separate this lot. Alex Bowman holds that seventh spot with 3009 points followed by surprise contendee Austin Dillon with 3005. Technically tied with Dillon, for the final transfer spot, is Aric Almirola. Trailing Almirola by 1 point apiece is Kyle Busch and Clint Bowyer. Finally, in 12th sits veteran Kurt Busch with 3001 points trailing eighth by just 4 points.
Finishing well this weekend will be paramount for these drivers as the next two races add all the variance they probably don’t want for the playoffs. Following Las Vegas, NASCAR heads back to Talladega then closes out the second round with the Charlotte Roval. This revised 2020 schedule “is what it is” but having a superspeedway race and road course in the same round is going to lead to much bellyaching in two weeks when a few good drivers miss the cut.
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Spinning Las Vegas
Easy/ lazy analysis would just say look what happened in February in the Pennzoil 400 and project that towards Sunday. If you’re right, you nailed it. If you’re wrong, just blame it on variance.
However, there’s a bit more nuance to Sunday than trying to project a race from way back on February 23rd as to expectations for this Sunday. Besides the obvious temperature differences, as well as time of day, we have this whole COVID-19 thing going on. That race was the second race of the year, back when we still had practice. Drivers had three practice sessions that weekend to get their cars in tune for Sunday’s race. This Sunday, hope your crew chief got the setup right at the shop back in Charlotte. If they didn’t, you’re probably spending the first segment trying to figure out just what you need to do with tire-pressures and wedge.
Furthermore, this isn’t the same tire-package that they ran back in the winter. As per Fantasy Racing Online, NASCAR is using the same left-side tire from Kentucky and Texas. Furthermore, the right-side tire being run hasn’t been seen at all this year.
The Cup cars will run a different right-side tire than Xfinity and trucks and different than February … Goodyear: Compared to what was run at Las Vegas earlier this year, this right-side tire features a compound change to give the cars more grip.
— Bob Pockrass (@bobpockrass) September 22, 2020
Where do we Turn?
So, if we can’t use the most recent race at Las Vegas, what can we use? While not perfect, I believe our two best pockets of information are coming from that back to back weekends of Kentucky and Texas. Also, while the tire-packages will differ, it probably won’t hurt to look back at the past Fall Vegas races either.
Kentucky
The Quaker State 400 was held on July 12th, a race won late by Cole Custer. That late maneuver by Custer was the most memorable part of the race, as Aric Almirola turned the race into a snoozefest leading from lap 10 through 128. Almirola ended the day as the top lap-leader while Martin Truex Jr. led the second-most laps (57). Truex’s day was a headscratcher as he failed inspection twice, had to start from the rear, and still made his way to the lead – although not until lap 181.
Despite only leading 18 laps that day, Ryan Blaney ranked second in fastest laps (33). On the flip side, despite having clean air for the majority of the race, Almirola only notched 36 fastest laps.
Texas
The O’Reilly Auto Parts 500 was held a week later, a race won by Austin Dillon following late pit strategy on lap 312. Ryan Blaney would lead the most laps at Texas that day (150) as well as the most fastest laps (86). Aric Almirola started on the pole that day and led up until the competition caution on lap 25. On lap 56, Almirola would regain the lead from teammate Kevin Harvick before relinquishing it to Martin Truex Jr. seven laps later.
Outside of Blaney, the lead was split up among 11 other drivers yet none led more than Harvick’s 40.
To summarize these two events, neither day saw the best driver win. Late cautions bunched up the field and an unlikely winner ended up holding the trophy at the end of the day – yet for different reasons. So, the thing that probably deserves more attention is those fastest laps. Fantasy Racing Online summed it up perfectly.
The left side tire Goodyear is bringing to Las Vegas this week is the same from Kentucky and Texas.
Most fastest laps in those races:
Blaney – 119
Almirola – 78
Truex – 40
Kurt Busch – 33
Harvick – 25
Elliott – 24#FantasyNASCAR pic.twitter.com/rcw6Terb8M— Fantasy Racing Online (@FanRacingOnline) September 22, 2020
Vegas in the Fall
If Sunday’s race is going to resemble anything close to the last two fall Vegas races, it’s going to look more like last year’s event. The first time NASCAR raced at Vegas in the Fall, it was a mess. Mind you, Las Vegas in September is still incredibly hot. Thus, the track was slick. It was a version of Vegas that none of those drivers had experienced before and you could tell it was a learning experience. That 2018 race saw 10 real cautions including a 5-car pileup that went down on lap 267. That day was purely about attrition as drivers like Corey LaJoie, J.J. Yeley, Regan Smith, Landon Cassill and Ross Chastain all finished in the top-20.
Flash forward a year and things were a bit more stable. From the green flag to lap 181, the race was clean. The only real cautions that race saw were for two single-car spins. As far as the drivers, that race saw Joey Logano lead the most laps (105). In fact, Logano has won the last two spring Vegas races and has been in the optimal DraftKings lineup for 4 straight. He might know something about racing here… Your eventual race winner was Martin Truex Jr., followed by Kevin Harvick, and Brad Keselowski. Interestingly enough, the year prior saw Keselowski win followed by Logano and Truex. Harvick finished 29th in that 2018 race following a wreck with Erik Jones.
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