We get a second 1.5-mile track this weekend as the Cup series heads west to Las Vegas Motor Speedway. While it’s the same distance as last week, we’re going to approach this track a bit differently in terms of how we build lineups. Vegas is known as a track that’s hard to pass at and track position is king.
In the last five races at Vegas, 40-percent of the top-10 finish positions were taken by drivers who started in the top-10 as well. As you’ll see in the table below, there have been a few high-passing races in the last five but in the last four, two of them have four or fewer drivers with double-digit position differential and Race 5 threw several categories off simply because several cars failed tech and were shifted to the rear after their qualifying spots were disallowed. Laps led and fastest laps are going to be key stats on DK this week as there are 267 laps in the race and with a lot of green flag laps being run, drivers can hold leads for a while. That being said, it’s unlikely a single car leads more than 100 laps.
Race 1 is the most recent and Race 5 is the oldest in the sample
| Race | Race | Race | Race | Race | ||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | AVG | |
| Positive Place Differential | 21 | 16 | 23 | 19 | 23 | 20.4 |
| Six+ Place Differential Spots | 10 | 10 | 12 | 6 | 21 | 11.8 |
| Double-Digit Place Differential | 3 | 7 | 7 | 4 | 15 | 7.2 |
| Double-Digit Fast Laps | 7 | 8 | 9 | 7 | 5 | 7.2 |
| 20+ Laps Led | 3 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 3.8 |
| 50+ Laps Led | 2 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| 100+ Laps Led | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0.4 |
Average Points By Starting Spots
These charts show the average points for each DFS site based on starting spots over the last five races, regardless of the driver or car in those spots. It’s not a hard and fast rule but more to show the strategy in place for each track.
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