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Hey, everyone! Our usual prop pick writer is out hiking this weekend, so I'm filling in for him. The NASCAR Cup Series is in Talladega this Sunday for the Geico 500, a race that should feature a lot of three-wide packs and explosive wrecks and things of that nature. This is a really fun place to watch some NASCAR action and if Saturday's Xfinity race is any indication, it might be even more interesting than the usual Talladega race, with the added heat of this race being in June potentially causing more tire wear issues than we might usually see. This is anecdotal, but I feel like Saturday saw drivers who didn't take tires fall off quicker than I'm used to seeing at this track.
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Pick 1: More or Less 2/2
Recommended Prop Pick: Brad Keselowski (UNDER 14.5 FP) and Joey Logano (OVER 14.5 FP)
Since 2013, Joey Logano has an average finish of 13.5 at Talladega, one of the best marks in the Cup Series. Logano's finished five consecutive races at this track, with four top fives over that span. He keeps this 22 car out of trouble at this track, and when you're at a plate track, finishing a race is a major skill. I really like Logano's chances of posting a strong fantasy score this week.
Meanwhile, I'm less high on Keselowski. His average Talladega finish is 3.1 spots worse than Logano and has been even worse lately, and on average he runs in 14.5th position at superspeedway tracks, while Logano runs 12.8. Since winning here in 2017, Keselowski has three finishes outside the top 20 in four races. I'm fine betting on another bad day for Penske's Blue Duece.
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Pick 2: Rapid Fire 3/4
Recommended Prop Pick: Joey Logano over Brad Keselowski, Chase Elliott over Ryan Blaney, Kevin Harvick over Martin Truex Jr., and Denny Hamlin over Kyle Busch
Can we pick three of these four head-to-head matchups correctly? At most racetracks, I'd pretty confidently say "yeah, for sure!" but man...superspeedways are wild, which is part of why I'm recommending some of the smaller contests this week, since this track is so unpredictable.
In terms of these matchups, you can look above for my reasoning of why to go Logano over Keselowski. Logano's run better here lately. Keselowski keeps finding trouble.
For Chase Elliott over Ryan Blaney, I'm going Elliott. He's got the best average running position here since 2013 of any driver in the Cup Series, and he's got the best superspeedway average running position as well. Elliott's very good at these tracks. Blaney's fine too and actually ran better at Talladega last year than Elliott until issues later in the race led to his average finish being 15.8, but I trust Elliott's longer track record of consistency.
Harvick over Truex Jr. feels easy for me. Since 2013, Harvick has an average position of 9.0 and finish of 16.3 here. Truex is at 16.5 and 18.2. The way I see it is this: Truex can beat Harvick if Harvick wrecks. Harvick can beat Truex if Truex wrecks OR if both cars stay clean. There's more potential winning combinations for Harvick.
For the final contest, we've got Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch. First, Hamlin's been really, really good in 2020. While he's only seventh in points, he's won three races -- including Daytona! -- and has top fives in two of the last three races. His average Talladega finish since 2013 is 12.5. Busch's average finish here over that span is 14.4, and the gap was even bigger in 2019, with Hamlin posting a 7.0 average finish here while Busch's was just 17.0.
This might be the choice I feel the least confident about, though, because while Hamlin's had some really good runs in 2020, he's also had some races where he just vanished. I don't have a great rebuttal to that point, other than to again point to Hamlin's recent plate track success and to also say "look, it's Talladega, who knows what'll happen?"
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Talladega is a track where I don't feel great about the bigger contests. The 6/6 More or Less is something you can usually make a pretty good go at, but Talladega adds in an extra element. Someone out of those six drivers is getting involved in the Big One. Multiple drivers might. That's not to say you shouldn't play those contests, but just know that things could be a little tougher to predict than usual.
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