Overview

NASCAR heads to the state of Virginia for back-to-back weeks starting Saturday at Richmond Raceway. Richmond is known as “America’s premier short track” and could be considered a fan-favorite venue. The .75-mile asphalt oval opened in 1946 and the XFINITY Series has been racing there since 1982. The drivers will turn 250 laps totaling 187.5 miles making this race the one with the most dominator points available on the XFINITY schedule thus far in 2022. Be sure to look for updates in Discord (for Daily Ambush members only) post-qualifying as this is a track where track position is of the utmost importance.

Strategy

I mentioned above that this race has the most dominator points available on the schedule to this point and that track position is important here. When considering those two factors, finding the driver(s) who will lead the most laps will be a major factor in winning or simply placing in a tournament. Last season Noah Gragson won the race here and the year prior Justin Allgaier won both races (on consecutive days due to the revised schedule because of COVID-19). Six of the last eight winners here have started inside the top five with Allgaier being the outlier on both occasions. Another wrinkle is that we won’t have any Cup Series regulars to consider in this race which makes some of the decisions easier when it comes to building lineups. I’ll be looking to roster two potential dominators in most of my lineups because of the hefty amount of dominator points available.

Most comparable tracks: New Hampshire Motor Speedway, Phoenix Raceway

*Note: all pricing is DraftKings focused

Top Drivers

Justin Allgaier ($10,600)

As mentioned above Allgaier has won two of the last three Richmond races but he’s been pretty solid at most of the flat tracks overall. Outside of those two Richmond wins, the Jr. Motorsports veteran has eight top-fives and 11 top-10s at Richmond and also has two wins, eight top-fives, and 16 top-10’s in his career at Phoenix. Regardless of where he starts the race, Allgaier will be able to contend for the win. Keep in mind that in his two wins in 2020 at Richmond he started 16th and 14th. He’ll be in play no matter what in all formats.

A.J. Allmendinger ($10,200)

Dinger has been a model of consistency to this point with six top-10s, an average finishing position of fifth, and is coming off a win last week. The Kaulig driver has led at least 27 laps in four races this season and despite not being a great flat-track driver in his career, Allmendinger has shown the ability to adapt out of just a road-course racer and despite finishing 18th at Richmond last year he was able to lead 39 laps.

Riley Herbst ($8,100)

In four Richmond races, Herbst has three top-10s and a top-five to his credit and also has a top-10 at New Hampshire. There have been some peaks and valleys this season for Herbst as he has three top-10s on the campaign but also has a 38th-place finish due to a wreck and a 26th-place finish last week. Depending on where Herbst qualifies he can be a sneaky mid-priced option.

Also Consider:

Noah Gragson ($10,900)

Ty Gibbs ($11,500)

Ryan Sieg ($6,700)

Austin Hill ($8,400)

Derek Griffith ($5,800)

GOOD LUCK!!