Vegas baby! The Round of 12 starts this weekend with the second trip to Vegas for the Cup series this year and first since a few races into the season. The first intermediate track we’ve seen in a while, yes there was Darlington but that’s an odd one, and so it’s back to the 550-horsepower package on Sunday as a track where track position matters a ton. While this is a track that is comparable to several of the other 1.5-mile layouts on the schedule like Kansas, Texas, Charlotte, and even Kentucky when that was on the schedule, the difference here is that the multiple grooves don’t necessarily pan out and track position is hard to pick up without pit strategy.

Speaking of pit strategy, we will see drivers stretch the runs in this race, especially later in the stages, to keep the track position they may have for the restarts. We will also see short pitting as well to try and jump the line in the other way at the end of stages but generally speaking there is a ton of pit strategy at play in this race. Tire wear is also not an issue at Vegas and so it really comes down to how well a driver can save fuel to lengthen their run or not.

Strategy Notes:

There are 267 laps in this 400-mile race and so laps led and fastest laps will be a factor in the scoring with 187 dominator points on DraftKings. As far as FanDuel is concerned, there aren’t that many crashes or cautions here so laps completed should be close to full though there have been races here in which about half the field finishes a lap or more down. In terms of position differential, it’s possible to have several drivers move up quite a bit here and there are a few drivers in the field who average six or more spots a race over the last five races here. One thing to keep in mind about comparing the race from March to this one is the temperature. The temp for the race in March was 74 degrees while Sunday’s high is supposed to be 92 degrees, and could be hotter considering Saturday’s high is forecast as 96. The hotter conditions will make the track a bit slicker and it will be tougher on the drivers with the hotter track temps.

Facts To Know

  • There are seven drivers in the field this week with a Driver Rating over 100 in the last five races.
  • There are five drivers in the field with at least four top-10s in the last four or more races here.
  • Over the last five races here, 54-percent of the drivers to finish in the top-10 started outside the top-12.
  • Only three of the top-10 scoring spots over the last five races here have come from inside the top-10 in the grid.
  • There have only been one driver a race to lead 100 or more laps a race over the last five races and there are an average of 1.8 drivers to lead 50 or more laps and four a race to lead at least 20.
  • An average of five drivers a race have moved up double-digit PD spots a race as well.

The table below shows the number of drivers to reach each stat-type over the last five Vegas races with Race 1 being the most recent.

 RaceRaceRaceRaceRace 
 12345AVG
Positive Place Differential182116231919.4
Six+ Place Differential Spots810101269.2
Double-Digit Place Differential437745
Double-Digit Fast Laps778977.6
20+ Laps Led534444
50+ Laps Led123121.8
100+ Laps Led110100.6

For the tables below:

* The DFS Scoring Table: Race 1 is the most recent race in the sample size with Race 5 being the earliest. We are using the Last 5 Vegas races for the data.