The 2022 NASCAR Xfinity Series season marches on and this week we’re paying a visit to the short, 0.75-mile track also known as Richmond Raceway. To no surprise A.J. Allmendinger won the Xfinity Series race at Circuit of the Americas (COTA) last week and he almost grabbed the win in the Cup Series before getting dumped by Ross Chastain. With the win, Allmendinger locks himself into the playoffs with Ty Gibbs, Noah Gragson, and Austin Hill. But this week we get our second “short” track since we’ve already seen them run Phoenix. Fortunately for the Xfinity Series, we can pull from track history data as well as other short tracks to determine how we want to attack Richmond and dominate Saturday’s slate for the ToyotaCare 250!
This is going to be one of those weeks that we need to keep an open mind when building lineups. Matt and I discussed on the podcast the difficulty in passing at Richmond. And as the race progresses, more and more drivers will fall off the lead lap. That’s not a death sentence, but it will limit the upside of some drivers as the race progresses. Last year, Richmond was a bit of an anomaly. 27 drivers finished on the lead lap. That’s a ridiculously high amount. If we flip the calendar to 2020 and look at the Richmond doubleheader the Xfinity Series ran, we find that 14 drivers finished on the lead lap in the first race while only nine finished on the lead lap for the second race. One thing that could lead to more drivers finishing on the lead lap are the number of cautions and the amount of laps run under yellow. Pit strategy and being the lucky dog are how you can get back on the lead lap, but it’s no guarantee. So you do not need to go too crazy looking for PD targets, but you will need a couple. Depending on the amount of chaos, I do think we could see more drivers start outside the top 15 and finish in the top ten compared to the Cup Series.
Saturday will give us a short schedule. So between Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday we’ve had time to digest the salaries. Saturday’s schedule looks like this:
- 8:30am ET - Practice (Followed by Qualifying shortly after… Best of luck to you West Coasters)
- 1:45pm ET – We go green for the ToyotaCare 250
It’s an earlier race than we’re used to and to be honest, I’m surprised they didn’t push the race to a slightly later start since we don’t have Trucks this week, but I digress. We get 250 laps for this race which translates to 175 dominator points. Quite the opposite from last week’s road course in Austin. You can easily look to go with one-to-two dominators in your build while sprinkling in two contrarian options starting in the teens, and then get some safe PD options into your builds. Overall, a lot of light will be shed following qualifying.
Practice Results
Driver Pool
Ty Gibbs ($11,500) Gibbs was fastest overall in practice. Not too much of a surprise considering JGR likes to put on a good show here and that looks to be true for the Xfinity race at least. This is a premiere price to pay this week and you really need dominator points and a strong finish from him.
Noah Gragson ($10,900) Gragson is costly, but if he gets the dominator points then he’ll be worth every penny. In six races here he’s finished eighth or better five times including a win here last year. If we had to pick an MVP based strictly off speed through six races it might be Gragson (even though Gibbs has a pair of wins). The 9-car has been very fast and he has five top four finishes across a variety of tracks including a win at Phoenix, a track similar to Richmond. Jr. Motorsports will be heavily featured in this Playbook and for good reason. The team’s success and their drivers thrive on this style of track.
Justin Allgaier ($10,600) It’s tough to discuss Richmond without mentioning Allgaier. We’ve seen five Xfinity races at Richmond since 2019 and Allgaier has finished fourth or better in all five races including a pair of wins when he swept the doubleheader in 2020. The nice thing about Allgaier this year is that he’s really made it obvious when he’s a good play and a bad play. Anytime he’s started outside the top 15, he’s gone on to finish inside the top ten including a pair of top fives. The last two races when he’s started inside the top ten, he’s gone backward horrifically. But remember, we need dominator points this week and this has been a track that Jr. Motorsports has done very well at in recent years. Update: Allgaier was very slow in practice, but he did say in an interview that they waited a while to go out on the track so they aren't too worried about the car. He's dominated here and he's picky about how the car needs to run and he knows the track conditions will be warmer later this afternoon so he's not concerned overall about the speed. He looked fine during qualifying and was much faster than practice. He's good to go.
John Hunter Nemechek ($10,400) JHN gets the week off from the Truck Series, but he’ll be back in action next Thursday night for Martinsville. For now, he’ll step into the 18-car for Joe Gibbs Racing on Saturday. JHN has been great in lesser equipment so far. He finished 12th and 5th at Las Vegas and Phoenix respectively and that was with Sam Hunt Racing. Last Fall he started P27 and finished P3 in that same car. Now we’re getting him in some phenomenal equipment and it’s historically a track that JGR has done very well at and the name of the race is the TOYOTAcare 250. Who says no this week? Update: JHN was fast in practice and qualifying. But most are going to flock to Gibbs for ownership. The track conditions will be warmer and likely more slick so while Gibbs was blowing everyone out of the water in the morning, perhaps the track conditions favor other drivers this afternoon. JHN's a great hedge off the Gibbs chalk.
A.J. Allmendinger ($10,200) There’s just too much of a floor with Allmendinger to pass up. His worst performance so far in 2022 was 39 points at Vegas. But he’s coming off his first win of the season (of course it came on a road course), but he’s finished in the top ten in all six races this year. He finished 18th here last year, but he had an average running position of fourth, led 39 laps with 31 fastest laps, and he had the fourth-best driver rating in that race.
Ryan Preece ($9,800) Preece gets an obvious acknowledgement given that he’s a Cup-level driver getting a run in Xfinity. He has a deal with Stewart Haas Racing so I’m guessing they’re prepping this car that’ll be run under the BJ McLeod Motorsports banner. Preece has already run a few races in the Truck Series, and he did go out and win a race last year in the Trucks. So as it stands right now, I’m intrigued and I don’t think ownership will be incredibly heavy unless he has an issue during qualifying and starts further back. Update: Looks like the car was set up by SHR. That's good news.
Josh Berry ($9,100) Full disclosure, I do currently have Berry in my Cash lineup. He does very well on shorter flat tracks and he offers some PD. He also seemed very pleased with the car when he was interviewed following practice. He's a relatively safe play offering some PD and he could collect some dominator points.
Landon Cassill ($8,800) I don’t typically think of Kaulig Racing as a team that does well on short tracks. But if that’s the case then I was dead wrong on this team at Phoenix when they all finished top ten. Prior to last week at COTA, Cassill had ripped off three straight top tens. If you look at his Driver Averages profile you’ll see his most recent races at Richmond haven’t gone well. But they were due to mechanical issues in worse equipment. He’s back in great equipment and was coming around prior to COTA and the best part is that ownership could be soft as long as he doesn’t qualify too poorly. Update: Cassill wasn't particularly fast in practice and he qualified pretty poorly as well. The track conditions will change, however, it did sound like he was having brake issues in practice and he was getting a little loose coming out of the corners. Proceed with caution, but I may downgrade him a bit because he'll be popular based on the starting spot, but I'm not worried about him in Cash games.
Sam Mayer ($8,700) Cassill and Mayer might just be my favorite “contrarian” options as it stands prior to qualifying. Most DFS players will likely pay up for their teammates. Mayer himself has been hit or miss in 2022. But as mentioned previously, this is a good track for JRM and more importantly, Mayer thrives on shorter tracks. Now you may scoff at the fact he started P7 and finished 22nd at Phoenix, but he had the most green flag passes during the race (102) and the ninth-fewest green flag times passed of drivers that completed at least 175 laps. Perhaps it was some poor pit stops that led him to regain track position, but he had the 16th-best driver rating during that race. He was better than the P22 finish. Update: Mayer had speed and qualified pretty well. One thing worth noting is that he's in the Dash 4 Cash competition today so he has extra motivation to have a strong run.
Riley Herbst ($8,100) We know the good and the bad that come with Herbst. Truthfully, the further back he starts, the less confident I am in him. Obvious Herbst chalk never goes well. However, I will always get exposure to him given the price tag and knowing he’s running in good equipment. He’s not the best driver and at times he lacks luck and talent, but hey, he’s far better than me and is more qualified to race. He grabbed a top five here last Fall and in four races here he has three top tens with the lone poor result being from a crash. He’s a driver to keep an eye on tomorrow, but I imagine he maybe qualifies like P17 and we just hope for a top ten from him. Update: Herbst was having issues during practice. It sounded almost like a mechanical issue, but he did post a decent qualifying lap. I'll never trust him in Cash games, but i'll throw him in some GPP builds.
Brett Moffitt ($7,900) Moffitt always seems to be overlooked in DFS. In his last four races, across a variety of tracks, Moffitt has moved up well and finished in the top 15, returning at least 31 points in each of those races. He scored a top five at Richmond in 2020 while leading 32 laps and he finished 18th and 6th in the Richmond doubleheader for Xfinity in 2020. He finished 15th at Phoenix a few weeks ago and finished 8th there last Fall and 9th last Spring. Additionally, for a little more juice to his resume he was 9th at New Hampshire last year. Clearly, he has top ten upside, but a relatively decent floor as well.
Jeb Burton ($7,500) Burton is back to a more reasonable price tag this week after a questionable $6,100 tag last week. The equipment is certainly a downgrade from what he was running a year ago. However, if we’re looking at comparable tracks to Richmond he did finish 12th at Phoenix a few weeks back and he grabbed a top ten here with Kaulig last season. This also may be considered one of two potential home tracks for him…
Take from what whatever you wish, but he’ll want to definitely get a strong result in front of his family and friends. Don’t go overboard with exposure if he starts too far back. We will want a few lineups that differentiate in the event he gets caught a few laps down. Update: Burton locked up his tires and got into the wall. It almost looks like he'll need to go to a backup car, but we'll confirm that before the start of the race. Either way, he's starting at the rear with a lot of questions about the car.
Brandon Brown ($6,900) Brown is the preliminary “nice” play of the week, but I really want to see how he looks in P&Q. This is a great price tag for Brown although the consistency hasn’t been there to start the 2022 season, like it was in 2021. But he did move up and finish 13th at Phoenix a few weeks back, and he finished eighth here last Fall. Having some PD on his side certainly won’t hurt his case. This is basically the home track for Brandonbilt Motorsports since their garage is about an hour North of the track, so you can bake some of that into your analysis if you so wish. Update: Qualified outside the top 20. He's experienced and this is basically his home track. I'm fine with Brown in all formats.
Ryan Sieg ($6,700) I write up Ryan Sieg a lot. Almost on a weekly basis. But he’s a top 12-15 driver in this series and he’s routinely priced in the low-$7,000’s and this week he’s $6,700. He’s finished in the top 11 in five of the six races this year and he’s finished 15th or better in his last five races at Richmond. The caveat to that statistic is that he’s gone backward in some of those races after qualifying too high. But in the seven races since 2018, he’s either finished on the lead lap or just one lap down. As always, he’s a great option in GPP’s to open up some salary and may not carry much ownership. Update: Qualified P8 so he's not a great Cash game play but he is a relatively safe option for a top 12 finish if he runs clean. Love him for GPP's though if everyone else is trying to find PD in this range.
Jade Buford ($6,500) I know you’re all probably tired of me talking about Buford at this point. But we know he’s better than where he’s been finishing. That was the case for the first handful of races and we finally got a strong finish from him last week at COTA, and what does DraftKings do? They give us a $900 discount. He didn’t have a solid run at Richmond last year as he finished four laps down at P36. But we do know the upside he has if he offers PD. It does depend on him staying clean and he needs to start outside the top 20.
JJ Yeley ($6,200) Not sure what the hell happened but I completely overlooked Yeley with almost every pass through the driver pool. He starts P35 and has the ability to finish 8-10 spots higher. He's a great paydown option in Cash and GPP formats, but I think he could be one of the more heavily-owned value plays.
Mason Massey ($6,000) Massey’s seen a bit of a price jump, but I don’t think it’s high enough to the point where I’ll write him off. The important thing to note with a driver like Massey is that he’s finished each of the four races he’s run this year. He’s gained at least five spots of PD in each race and wouldn’t you know it, he has an average finish of 21.7 in three races at Richmond with an average starting position of 30.7. Is he completely safe this week? No. No one ever is. But his prior results came in slightly worse equipment and he’s made the most of his runs with DGM Racing so far in 2022. Update: Qualified P25 so he's a perfectly fine GPP play.
Derek Griffith ($5,800) I think most people could have a difficult time rostering Griffith when he’s more expensive than Joey Gave and Ryan Vargas. However, he will be in the 26-car for Sam Hunt Racing and we’ve seen this car have some top 15 runs. But those were with more experienced drivers, (probably) with more talent. If you’re getting exposure to Griffith you’re looking for leverage and at the results for the equipment. Keep an eye on how he looks in practice. Update: Didn't love the speed in practice nor qualifying. However, he's cheap and starting far enough back where we don't necessarily need him to finish on the lead lap. One thing I did like is that he wasn't struggling coming out of the corners like other drivers were during P&Q.
Rajah Caruth ($5,700) It's always a risk targeting a driver making his/her debut. That's the case with Griffith and Caruth this afternoon. But Caruth looked very comfortable in the 44-car for Alpha Prime and qualified P22. I won't be going here in Cash games but I'll throw a couple darts in GPP's.
Joey Gase ($5,300) It’s going to come down to where he qualifies for this race. If he once again qualifies outside the top 30, then sign me up. Since 2018, in six races at Richmond he’s finished 20th twice, 22nd twice, and 23rd twice. And all those results came in pretty bad equipment. I’m not taking him to finish in the top 15 or even top ten. I’m well aware he’s likely a driver that finishes multiple laps down, but that doesn’t mean he can’t move up and gain PD. It’s been about four weeks since we’ve seen him race, so I’m hoping it’s not a challenge for him to shake off the dust. Update: Qualified P37 and wasn't very fast. Not overly worried. He can gradually move up through the race. He's basically hitting value if he moves up 10-11 spots.
Example Lineups
Example Lineups will be posted separately around 1:00pm ET.
Related Links
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