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Las Vegas -
#1-Kurt Busch: Vegas isn't a great track for Kurt Busch overall. He has struggled here for a long time, even though he was pretty competitive in 2019 at this place. He finished 5th in 2019 spring race and finished in the top 10 in the first two stages in the fall's race. Then he had a tire rub after making contact with Martin Truex Jr and Chase Elliott! He later would plow into the wall and ended his day early. Like I said earlier, this is not a very good track for Kurt in his career! In 12 of his last 15 races overall, he has finished 16th or worse. His three lone top 10 finishes are 5th, 9th and 9th. You can take a chance with him, but I would much prefer to wait and see with him!
#2-Brad Keselowski: Not many drivers were happier that Nascar gave Las Vegas a second race then Brad Keselowski! As he has some really awesome numbers at this racetrack! In 6 of his last 9 races here, he has compiled finishes in the top 3. And in those 9 races, he hasn't finished worse than 7th! And 5 of his last 6 races has ended in the top 5 as well. Since the 2013 season here, he has been just amazing at this place. If you combined his numbers at Vegas and being known as one of the most consistent drivers on the 1.5 milers, then you probably get a top 5 drvier. I love Brad this weekend!
#3-Austin Dillon: Dillon isn't anything flashy here at Las Vegas, but in 8 of 9 career starts he has finished 21st or better. While 5 of those 8 races has ended in 12th-16th place range! More recently? He has finished 3 of the last 4 races between 11th and 13th. In his last 4 races at Vegas, he has compiled finishes of 12th, 20th, 11th and 13th. I will be completely honest, I am higher on Austin Dillon in general in 2020 than most. However, I am not a big fan of Austin Dillon's at Vegas! His upside is somewhere in the top 15, but realistically he will run/finish somewhere in the mid to high teens.
#4-Kevin Harvick - Harvick is a stud on the 1.5 mile tracks and it is where the #4 usually shines and Vegas can be a great track for Kevin. If he avoids trouble, then most times he will contend for the win and likely be a top 5 driver. Problem? He has had trouble avoid trouble here with SHR. In 8 career races with SHR, he has posted same amount of top 2 finishes (3- including 2 wins) as he does DNF finishes of 38th or worse. More bad news? If his trend pattern of finishes holds true, then he's due for a bad finish this weekend at Vegas. Here how his 8 finishes look with #4 team (most recent races listed last): 41st, 1st, 7th, 38th, 1st, 39th, 4th and 2nd. His trend has been: Bad race, good race, good race, bad race, good race, bad race, good race and good race. If that trend holds true, then he is due for a bad race. Of course, trends are worthless unless they actually contuine. I am very high on Kevin Harvick, but I am very aware that this has been a bit of bad luck place for him.
#9-Chase Elliott: Elliott had a very disappointing end to the 2019 season, a year where he posted 3 wins and 11 top 5 finishes. Elliott overall is one of the more well-rounded drivers in the series in a top ride. But the intermediate tracks the bread and butter for this #9 team, though. However, I wouldn't call Las Vegas a sure thing for him. As he has three career top 10 finishes in 6 starts! He also has finishes of 34th, 36th and 38th in his other three career starts! He did sweep the top 10 in 2019 with finishes of 9th and 4th, though. Vegas is a good track for Elliott, if he can avoid problems.
#10-Aric Almirola: Most people are down on Aric, after he had a very disappointing 2019 season! I think he will bounce back in 2020, though. Vegas could be a good place to help him do that, too. In his last 5 races at Las Vegas, he hasn't finished worse than 14th place. In 3 of those 5 races, he has finished in the top 10. In 2019, he had finishes of 13th and 7th. He posted driver ratings of 96.5 and 95.6 as well. So overall that performances weren't too different from each other. I will note I thought he was stronger in the spring's race (where he finished 7th), as he started 25th in that race. Honestly, he really struggled in 2019 on the 1.5 mile tracks. He started the season with 3 top 10 finishes and 5 top 12 finishes in the first five 1.5 mile tracks. After that? Only one top 10 in the final 6 race on the 1.5 mile tracks. He also 3 ugly races at Kansas and Michigan. With finishes of 17th, 33rd and 23rd. Yikes! Not good, considering those are tracks that we commonly compare to a place like Vegas!
#11-Denny Hamlin: Hamlin had a great season in 2019 and honestly I would expect him to regress some and that's pretty much a given. Is it possible for him to back it up? Sure, but I say it is unlikely. Based off the numbers, I wouldn't be too excited about him at Las Vegas. He can run well here, but his numbers aren't exciting. In his last 10 career races here, he has only posted 3 top 10 finishes. In those 10 races, he has only twice posted a driver rating above 100.0. If you are elite performer, you should be well above 100. In 4 of his last 6 races here, he has finished 15th or worse! He did finish 10th in last spring's race, though.
#12-Ryan Blaney: In 5 of his last 6 races at Vegas, he has finished 7th or better. Over the past two seasons, he has posted 3 top 5 finishes in 4 races. He finished 22nd in last spring's race. It was a very disappointing weekend for the #12 team. He qualified poorly and ran even worse, too. I think Blaney's biggest problem is consistency, but that doesn't seem to be a major issue at his favorite tracks. Certain places he has just a knack for finishing and running well on. I think Las Vegas fits into that category!
#14-Clint Bowyer: Bowyer wasn't too sharp in the 2019 season and he had a major consistency problem, too. On the 1.5 mile tracks, he was very unimpressive at times, too. I do like him more than most people heading into the season, but that's not saying a lot. However, I am not very high on him here at Las Vegas! This ranked as his 17th (of 22) best tracks over the past two seasons, and ranked as his 20th-best track with only 8 top 20 finishes in 16 career starts. That number get cut in half, when we are looking at top 10 finishes. How did he fair in the 2019 here at Las Vegas? He was unimpressive and had finishes of 25th and 14th. In his last 9 races here, he has just two finish inside the top 17 and those were a 10th place finish in March 2017 and 14th place finish in March 2019. In the other 7 finishes, he has six finishes of 21st or worse! Simply put, he is not very good at here!
#18-Kyle Busch: Kyle Busch was very good on this type of track in 2019, but I wouldn't call him dominant, though. He will always have a great chance to go to victory lane on these 1.5 mile tracks, but he didn't win a race on one until Homestead. I gotta say, that was very suprising. Even more suprising, he only produced 4 Top 5 finishes (outside of his win at Homestead) on the 1.5 mile intermediate tracks. He was strong in last spring's race here at Las Vegas, as he finished 3rd after leading 13 laps. In the fall's race, he finished 19th. Don't be fooled though, as he had a top 5 car. He had a crazy race and really had to rebound at end of the event and probably would had scored a top 5 finish, but he had an incident with a lap down car. That of course, made for a very interesting post-race interview. Overall, he has finished 6 of his last 8 races here in the top 11. Prior to finishing 19th in last season's race, he had 3 straight top 7 finishes at this track. He shoul be back to contending for top 5 finishes here this weekend!
#19-Martin Truex Jr: This is a great chance for Martin Truex Jr to get a win early in 2020 and he has been impressive since joining Toyota on 1.5 mile tracks. And over the past two seasons, no driver in the field has a better driver rating than Martin Truex Jr and ranks second in average finish. In 2019, he had finishes of 8th and 1st. Going back further, he has finished 5 of his last 7 races here in the top 4. In the past 5 races at Las Vegas, he has some really impressive performances! 3 times in the last 5 races, he has had a driver rating above 125.0! Guys, you are performing at an elite level if you have anything north of 120.0. He had driver ratings of 125.9, 135.1 and 147.6. Other two races? 97.1 and 113.2. Overall, he has been simply stupid good! In my eyes, he is the early odds-on favorite to win!
#20-Erik Jones: Jones' biggest problem early in his career (like most young drivers) is posting consistent finishes on a regular basis. But luckily, he was pretty consistent on the 1.5 mile intermediate tracks in 2019 honestly. In 8 of 11 races, he posted finishes in the top 10! But Las Vegas was trouble spot for him in 2019, as he had finishes of 13th and 36th. Overall, it has been a tough place for him with just one top 10 finish in 5 career starts and 3 top 20 finishes in those 5 starts. Is that horrible? No! But he also really hasn't contended for any top 5 finishes at this place, either. I guess, there's nothing to hate about him at Las Vegas. But I would prefer waiting on him for now and seeing how he does early in the season. If he can put together a few top 10 finishes, then I am all for using him!
#22-Joey Logano: Las Vegas is a great track for Penske and I am pretty high on them this weekend! Logano had a pair of impressively strong races at Las Vegas in 2019, where he led 86 laps to a win in March 2019 and led 106 laps to a 9th place finish in September 2019. Overall, he has finished 10th or better in 8 straight races and compiled a driver rating over 102 in all 8 races. And in 6 of those 8 races, his driver rating has been 108.0 or better! It's hard to not be impressed with him at this track! As impressive as he has been, he doesn't even have the best numbers among his teammates. Like I said, I am very high on Penske in general this weekend!
#24-William Byron: I like William Byron a lot in 2020, I think he gonna have some really good performances. I am sure there will be rough spots for him, but I think he could be the next driver to score his first career win! He was all over the map on the 1.5 mile tracks in 2019, as he pretty much was top 10 or miss as a fantasy pick. He had 5 top 10 finishes in 2019 on this type of track, which means he had 6 finishes outside of the top 10 as well. Hopefully there's more speed in those Chevys in 2020, and if there is then I think we can expect a upstick in production. I think we will see some sort of improvement, regardless how much more speed the Hendrick cars have. Like any young driver, he will get better as he keep getting more starts!
#42-Kyle Larson: Larson has a better average finish over the past couple seasons than I thought he did, but a lot of those because he had 3 top 5 finishes during the 2017 and 2018 seasons. He was very good during those two seasons. However, those are by far his best seasons at this track. In 2019, he had finishes of 8th and 12th and never really contended for top 5 finishes in either race. By no means is Larson a bad driver here at Las Vegas, but I don't have ton of confidence that he can finish in the top 5. He admitted in 2017 or 2018 (cannot remember which one) that he was suprised how well he ran at Las Vegas. Sometimes, I keep those important nuggets in back of my head for times like these. I would expect a low-end top 10 finish from Larson!
#48-Jimmie Johnson: Over the off-season it was announced that Jimmie Johnson would retire after the 2020 season's ended! Look, I have been very tough on Jimmie over the past couple seasons and there's no hate on him. I really wish he could go out and have a magical 2020 season. But folks, he isn't the same guy anymore and I know there's a lot of people who disagree with that. But go back and watch him the past few seasons and you will see exactly what I mean. Could it be because of Hendrick on a downslide? Sure! But his teammates also outran him pretty often during the 2020 season. For the season, he had average finish of 17.4. Byron had 14.9 average finish and Bowman average finish was like 14.4. That's a pretty big drop-off, if you ask me. So what is realistic to expect out of him at Las Vegas? Well if there was bright spot for him during the 2019 season, then it was on these 1.5 mile tracks. He actually posted 7 top 10 finishes and even a few top 5 finishes. The days of Johnson contending for wins are probably over. But he is very capable of some solid finishes.
#88-Alex Bowman: Bowman had a good 2019 season and I will admit he was better than I thought he would had been. He did score a win (I didn't think he would) and had a few very strong runs, too. In 2019, he had 14.4 average finish with 12 Top 10 finishes. He hasn't been great at Las Vegas since joining the #88 team, but he has no finishes outside the top 20 and had career best finishes in 2019. He had a career-high (then) of 11th in the March's race, then he topped that high (to create a new-career high) of 6th in the September's race! He ended 2019 with some very good runs on type of track honestly. He had 4 straight top 11 finishes to end the season on 1.5 mile tracks. In 3 of those 4 races, he had finishes in the top 10!
#95-Christopher Bell: I think Bell is gonna win Rookie of the year in 2020, but he will have plenty of competition, though. There's not a lot to go on with Bell, since he has zero cup starts to date. But he will be in great equipment. He will basically be an extra JGR car. Now, he won't get quite as good equipment like the actual JGR cars but the Coach will make sure he's good! Think back to Erik Jones' rookie season to get a better idea what to expect out of the #95 car this season. I think Bell is a better talent to Jones though. This kid has a chance to be very special down the road, especially if he develops like we expect him to!
**All stats are from DriverAverages.com
Twitter - @JeffNathans18
