Overview

Much like the Xfinity Series last night, the first race of the Round of 12 for the Cup Series hits Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Just a refresher here, LVMS is a 1.5-mile asphalt oval that can be compared to Kansas Motor Speedway. The drivers will turn 267 laps for 400.5 miles. Kyle Larson dominated the Spring race here leading 103 of 267 laps from the third position. Denny Hamlin, who’s never won at LVMS led the second-most laps (47) starting sixth and finished fourth. Track position is key here in Vegas and this will be a hotly contested race. Much like the Xfinity article yesterday, I’m going to switch up the format here a bit in an attempt to make it easier for you all to make some tough decisions. I’ll be looking to roster two potential dominators in all of my lineups.

Top Drivers

These are my favorite drivers to roster whether they’re dominator contenders, place differential targets, or drivers that could be both with a chance to win.

Kyle Larson ($11,100)

Larson should be one of the top-three owned drivers on Sunday as he starts on the pole. His win in the Spring was his first career win at LVMS and outside of that Larson has two second-place finishes and a third-place finish at the 1.5-mile oval. Larson has been the class of the Series this season, generally dominating the laps led category, especially at the mile-and-a-half tracks and he’s my pick to win on Sunday.

Brad Keselowski ($8,700) and Joey Logano ($9,900)

The former Cup Series champion is currently six points on the outside of the cutoff line as the series heads to one of his better tracks. At $8,700 starting inside the top 10 (eighth) the time is now for Brad to make a move if he’s going to be a threat in his last season driving the 2 car for Roger Penske. In 16 career races at LVMS Brad has three wins and eight top five’s with an average finish of 10.8. Consider, with that average finish Keselowski’s first four Cup races here were treacherous as he posted finishes of 38th, 26th, 26th, and 32nd. Since then Brad has rattled off 11 top 10’s out of 12 races with the aforementioned three wins, two second-place finishes, two third-place finishes, and a fifth-place finish. The future Roush-Fenway partner has also led 24 or more laps on five separate occasions here, and finally, he finished second here in the Spring behind a Kyle Larson car that no one was beating outside of a machine with a rocket slammed into the tailpipe. The upside is immense for Brad given his track record here (no pun intended) and I don’t see him being very popular. The same goes for his teammate below…

Keselowski’s teammate Joey Logano will start one spot behind him with similar success at this track. Logano has an average finish of 8.4 over 16 starts here. The two wins and six top fives for Logano at LVMS trail Keselowski however he has a lead on his teammate in the laps-led category by a substantial margin. In seven of his last 11 races at LVMS Logano has led at least 47 laps including 54 at the Spring 2020 race which he won as well as 86 at the Spring 2019 race in which he finished ahead of the field. Again he’ll start ninth which is right where his average start (8.8) has been throughout his career. Like Keselowski, he’s below the cutline so the time to go is now for the 22 car. It’ll be exciting to see these two battle all day. One note worth mentioning here, I won’t be stacking these two in any lineups.

Chris Buescher ($7,300)

As he’ll start 25th for $7,300 I expect Buescher to be the highest owned place differential target for me. In the Spring the driver of the 17 Roush Fenway machine finished 14th after starting 18th and Buescher has finished 18th or better in his last seven trips to LVMS with an average finish of 14.7 over that span. Included in those results are a ninth-place finish in the Fall last season, a 14th in the Spring of 2020, and two 15th-place finishes in the two 2018 races. I can rely on Buescher keeping the car clean and will be looking for him to finish between 15th and 17th. Anything more than that is upside I look forward to benefiting from.

Most comparable tracks: Kansas

Note: all pricing is DraftKings focused

Dominators

These are the drivers that we can typically expect to, you guessed it, dominate the race. When we think dominator we are looking for guys that will be in a position to lead a hefty amount of laps as well as be able to turn over fastest laps.

Ryan Blaney ($9,100)

Blaney will start second and he’s performed well at LVMS in his time with Team Penske. As I mentioned above with Keselowski and Logano it’s a trend that this team has had success here. Blaney has never won here but he does have a two top-fives and a seventh in his last four trips to this track. One thing Blaney has been able to do here is make up track position at a place where it’s hard to do that. When he finished fifth here in the Spring Blaney started 26th and when he finished fifth in the Fall of 2019 he started 23rd. With Blaney starting second alongside Kyle Larson no one will roster him because of the Larson factor. However, if Blaney can show up with a good car and get a little bit of fortune his way, he could pay off as a GPP pivot off of Larson.

Martin Truex, Jr. ($9,700)

While his results here have been all over the map, Truex has finished sixth and fourth in his last two races at LVMS. He’ll start fourth and has had good cars of late with 25, 44, and 27 fast laps in his last three races with an 80-laps-led performance in the middle. As a former Cup champion and the sixth-highest-priced driver don’t be surprised if Truex dominates at a track in which he’s won at twice and posted six top-fives.

Place Differential Targets

Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. ($6,800)

• Stenhouse starts 22nd and finished 11th here in the Spring. In the 2020 Spring race at LVMS Ricky finished third and has an overall average finish of 19th here.

Michael McDowell ($5,900)

• The Daytona 500 winner has finished 17th and 21st here in his last two trips and starts 23rd on Sunday night. The value here is tremendous for a guy that should at the very least be able to finish where he starts and keep the car clean.

Ross Chastain ($7,900)

• Chastain starts 18th and has been on fire of late with finished of 14th, seventh, and third over his last three.
• At like-track Kansas earlier this season Chastain finished 14th. He’s riding a ton of momentum as a non-playoff driver who’s been contending for wins over the past month.

Ryan Newman ($7,500)

• Newman is clearly at the twilight of his career but he’s been fully functional at Vegas over his last three trips.
• Starting 29th, Newman with finishes of 18th, 15th, and 10th over his last three is a prime P.D. candidate.

Also consider:

Corey LaJoie ($6,200)

Cole Custer ($7,100)

Speedy Notes

Driver I have most exposure to: Kyle Larson

Driver I’m fading that worries me: Chase Elliott

Driver I have zero interest in: Kevin Harvick

GOOD LUCK!!