NASCAR Cheez-It 355 Post #1

This weekend’s NASCAR Cheez-It 355 (awesome name I know) takes place at a road course at Watkins Glen, New York.  A quick search will land you at the Watkins Glen Wikipedia page,
which reveals that this track is unlike any other track on the NASCAR circuit (including Sonoma, the other road course).  

 

My Picks

Guys I Like

·        Kyle Busch ($10,500) – Kyle Busch has been on a tear lately and was on track to placing high last week until he ran out of gas.  His stats at WG are slightly better than usual and I would count on him to bounce back from last week’s mental error.

·        AJ Allmendinger ($10,200) – Allmendinger might be overpriced this week since he’s the 3^rd highest salary on DraftKings.  However, he vastly outperforms his average rating on road courses (including Watkins Glen and Sonoma).  We’ll see how he does in qualifying this week but count on him having another good performance.

·        Greg Biffle ($7,400) – Biffle is a great value pick for this event.  He outperforms his average at WG by 16% and he’s cheap.  I don’t think you can afford not to have him in your lineup this week.

Guys I Dislike

·        Kevin Harvick ($10,000) – Don’t get me wrong: I’m a huge fan of Harvick.  However, his stats on road courses just aren’t there.  He underperforms on these types of tracks and he is not sufficiently discounted to reflect that fact.

·        Brad Keselowski ($9,900) –I’ve had Keselowski in a lot of my lineups this year.  I’m just not going to hitch my wagon to his car this week.  Like Harvick, Keselowski just doesn’t perform up to his standard on road courses.  For $9,900, you can find some better value picks. 

Dark Horses

·        Boris Said ($6,400) – DraftKings has only one race history on Said from earlier this year.  From driveraverages.com, we see that he performs a lot better on road courses than any other.  He won’t win, but he’s worth a look if you have some extra spots in your lineups.

·        Michael McDowell ($5,600) – McDowell isn’t a stud.  He won’t win this race but at WG, he’s been 30% better than his un-studly self.  For $5,600, he’s worth a look if you want to load up on top end talent and need some cheap, high variance options on the bottom end.

Full Watkins Glen Stats (since February 2013)

Courtesy of www.driveraverages.com, I gathered some data on drivers’ histories at Watkins Glen since 2013.  First thing to note, there isn’t much of a significant sample to gather so be careful using what is here. 

 

I will post projections and a lineup after qualifying.  Good luck and ABI my friends,

Rob