The 2022 NASCAR season has made it to championship weekend and the second series to crown a champion will be the Xfinity Series. The race for the championship will be a battle between Junior Motorsports and Joe Gibbs Racing. Ty Gibbs (i.e. Jesus) did not make any friends last week and instead of making it two JGR drivers (Brandon Jones and Ty Gibbs) vs. two JR. Motorsports drivers (Noah Gragson and Justin Allgaier), it is now a three vs. one fight (Josh Berry will also compete for the championship from JR. Motorsports). Gibbs has his work cut out for him Saturday because the three Junior Motorsports drivers have won 15 of the 33 races, including the last race at Phoenix. It should be another exciting race to close out the season. The Xfinity Championship Race can be seen Saturday at 6 pm ET on USA.
XFINITY SERIES PRACTICE / QUALIFYING
This is championship weekend and that means NASCAR must have a championship schedule. The Xfinity Series had 55 minutes to practice Friday and then they qualified for the race Saturday. This is the same schedule the series had pre-Covid. It is nice to see the teams have some extra time to dial in their cars. It also gives us a good idea of who has speed and he does not. The drivers who were fast on the long-runs in Friday’s practice will be the drivers we want in our lineups this evening.
Here are the lap times from the practice Friday at Phoenix…
DRAFTKINGS POINTS ON FLAT TRACKS (2022)
The November race at Phoenix is not a tough race to figure out. We know the championship four drivers will race up front since they will get plenty of room on the track Saturday. We also have a lot of data to use for this race. New Hampshire and Richmond are similar tracks to Phoenix. The drivers who were fast at Phoenix in March, New Hampshire in July and at Richmond in April should be good picks Saturday. I also used the data from the race last week at Martinsville.
Here is the drivers average DraftKings Points on the short, flat tracks this year…
STRATEGY FOR PHOENIX
The race Saturday is scheduled for 200 laps. That means there are 50 points available for leading laps and 90 points available for fastest laps (140 dominator points).
The trend at Phoenix is for one driver to lead roughly 110 laps and score 50 fastest laps (50 dominator points). A second driver leads roughly 50 laps and scores 30 fastest laps (26 dominator points). A third driver leads roughly 40 laps and scores 28 fastest laps (22.6 dominator points). We will not win our contests this week if we do not have the top dominator in our lineups.
My strategy Saturday is to build “stars and scrubs” lineup. I want as many potential dominators as possible. It really doesn’t matter what our cheap drivers do as long as we have the top to dominators and score the roughly 100 dominator points they will likely score Saturday night.
The drivers who have the best chance to score the most dominator points Saturday include: Noah Gragson, Ty Gibbs, Brandon Jones and Justin Allgaier
DRIVER RANKINGS FOR PHOENIX
CORE DRIVERS FOR PHOENIX
TOP-TIER DRIVERS: Noah Gragson ($11,400), Ty Gibbs ($11,000), Justin Allgaier ($10,600), Josh Berry ($10,300), A.J. Allmendinger ($9,900), Brandon Jones ($9,400), Sam Mayer ($9,200),
VALUE DRIVERS: Riley Herbst ($8,700), Sammy Smith ($8,500), Jeremy Clements ($7,900), Anthony Alfredo ($7,800), Kyle Weatherman ($7,300), Brandon Brown ($7,100), Myatt Snider ($6,900), Alex Labbe ($6,300), Joey Gase ($6,200), Rajah Carruth ($6,000)
PUNT PLAYS: Josh Williams ($5,600), Brennan Poole ($5,300), Baley Currey ($5,200), Mason Massey ($5,000), Joe Graf Jr. ($4,900)
DRAFTKINGS CASH CONTEST LINEUP
DRAFTKINGS TOURNAMENT CONTEST LINEUP
Good Luck This Weekend!
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