The Cup Series will join the Xfinity Series at Las Vegas Motor Speedway this weekend. This will be the first race in the Round of 8 for both series, so there will be a spot in the championship four up for grabs this weekend. It is hard to believe that we may already know one driver who will be racing for the championship in Phoenix after the race in Las Vegas, but here we are. The Gen-7 car has put on quite a show on the 1.5-mile tracks and I expect the same this week. The South Point Casino 400 can be seen Sunday at 2:30 p.m. ET on NBC.
The Cup Series last raced at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in early March. A lot has happened since that race, but it never hurts to go back and see how the previous race on the track played out.
The Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas was completely dominated by William Byron. He qualified second, won both Stages, led 176 of the 271 laps and went to Victory Lane. His teammate, Kyle Larson was also really fast in Sin City. Larson led 63 laps, finished second in both Stages and finished sixth in the race. Other drivers who looked good in the race include Denny Hamlin, Bubba Wallace Christopher Bell, Martin Truex Jr., Ross Chastain, Brad Keselowski and Alex Bowman. I expect each of these drivers will be fast again this week.
You can watch the highlight of last year’s race at Charlotte here: LAS VEGAS (2023) RACE REWIND
CUP SERIES PLAYOFF STANDINGS
The Round of 12 is complete and now there are eight drivers competing for a spot in the final four at Phoenix Raceway. The points are reset and the teams are ready to bring the best cars they have in the organization to the track Sunday. The eight drivers racing for the championship include William Byron, Denny Hamlin, Ryan Blaney, Kyle Larson, Christopher Bell, Chris Buescher, Martin Truex Jr. and Tyler Reddick. The cream usually rises to the top in the playoffs, so each of these drivers will be good picks for your Fantasy NASCAR lineups at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
STATS FOR LAS VEGAS
I looked at the data from the Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway for the rankings this week. We also need to look at the data from the two races at Kansas, the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte and the race at Texas in the last round of the playoffs. I will give the last races at Kansas and Texas extra weight in the rankings since the speeds from those races should translate into speed Sunday at Las Vegas.
Here are the Driver Ratings for the drivers on the 1.5-mile tracks this year and the last three races at Las Vegas (Gen-7 car races at the track)
NASCAR STRATEGY
The strategy for the Driver Group Game is to simply play the best drivers you have available. I want to use my top drivers at Las Vegas and Homestead and try to find short track specialists at Martinsville and Phoenix. All drivers are in play for the Driver Group Game at Las Vegas.
The strategy for Fantasy Live is to play the best drivers you have available this week. The four drivers racing for the championship at Phoenix will NOT earn Stage Points in the last race. That means we only have three races (Las Vegas, Homestead and Martinsville) to use our top drivers (Kyle Larson, Denny Hamlin and William Byron). I want to make sure I use my allocations with these drivers before the race at Phoenix. I will use drivers who can score Stage Points in the final race of the season.
The strategy for DFS Contests is to select three dominators and three value picks for your lineups. The trend in the fall races at Las Vegas is for three drivers to dominate the race. The main dominator leads roughly 38 laps and scores 58 fastest laps (64.1 Dominator Points), a second driver leads 84 laps and scores 40 fastest laps (39 Dominator Points) and a third driver leads 10 laps and scores 28 fastest laps (15.1 Dominator Points). Our lineups will have a good chance of cashing in, if we are able to have the three dominators in our lineup and score the 118 bonus points that they are projected to score.
EARLY WEEK PICKS FOR LAS VEGAS
ONE & DONE PICK: ALEX BOWMAN
DRIVER GROUP GAME PICKS: WILLIAM BYRON, KYLE LARSON, BUBBA WALLACE, BRAD KESELOWSKI, MARTIN TRUEX JR., KYLE BUSCH, A.J. ALLMENDINGER, TY GIBBS
FANTASY LIVE PICKS: WILLIAM BYRON, KYLE LARSON, DENNY HAMLIN, TYLER REDDICK, MARTIN TRUEX JR., (GARAGE) BUBBA WALLACE
Good luck this weekend!
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