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Driver Group Game Fantasy NASCAR

2018 Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Pennzoil 400

Congratulations to Kevin Harvick on picking up his first win of the season in dominating fashion at Atlanta this past weekend. Nobody really had anything for Kevin most of the day where he even had issues with a gun on pit road and went to the back of the pack and drove right to the front in less than half of a fuel run. Brad Keselowski was the only driver who looked like he might have a chance to overtake Kevin, but that only last for a little while and once Kevin got a new set of tires he took off and no one could stick with him.

KOBALT 400

This week the series heads out west to the Las Vegas Motor Speedway for the running of the Pennzoil 400. This is another of the mile-and-a-half tracks like Atlanta and we will probably see most of the same names at the top of the leader board once again. It looks like the Ford’s are still quite a bit faster than the other makes at this point of the season, so we will probably look to load our rosters this way once again. It seems that the Chevrolet teams are still working on getting the speed and handling figured out on the new Camaro model they are running this season.

Brad Keselowski: I am going to say that Brad wins at Vegas this weekend. He was the closest to Kevin last week and he runs better here on a consistent basis winning twice in the last five races run here. With two wins, four top five and five top ten finishes in his last five starts at this track, Brad is the most consistent driver in the field at this track and he is going to have something for Kevin this week.

Martin Truex Jr.: Truex started at the rear last week and quickly moved up to the top ten in the first thirty laps before fading later in the race. I think this team comes to Las Vegas with an even better car than they had at Atlanta and competes all day long for the win here. We have to remember how good this team was all last season on this type of track and I think they are going to be just as good this year at those same tracks.

Kevin Harvick: They showed they are still going to be fast every week and are going to have great handling cars that are going to run towards the front every weekend. This team saw how important all those playoff bonus points were for Martin last year and they are going to shoot for those the rest of the season with the pressure of making the playoffs gone. They can take some chances with their strategy to try and win some stages and more races now.

Clint Bowyer: Clint had a great run at Atlanta last weekend and that is going to give the team a lot of confidence and a little momentum for the near future. It looks like the Stewart/Haas and Penske drivers are a cut above the rest of the field right now and they need to take advantage as the other teams are going to figure things out and get better as the year progresses. I think this team is going to make the playoffs this year.

Joey Logano: He looks so much better than he did the last two-thirds of last season. Joey always seems to run well at this track and has three top five and four top ten finishes here in his last five starts. The question for this team always seems to be if they can make the right adjustments to their car as the race progresses and the track changes. I want to watch them a little more before I decide how good they are going to be this year.

Kurt Busch: Kurt had another good run at Atlanta coming away with a top ten finish in that race and leading some laps early on. He really wants to win this race as Las Vegas is his hometown and he wants to win in front of his hometown crowd. Once again, all of the Stewart-Haas drivers are looking stout right now and they want to take advantage of it right now.

Ryan Blaney: The third of the Penske drivers, Ryan also had a great run at Atlanta last weekend. He has only run three races at this track and he came away with two top ten finishes. Now he is on an even better team and you should see him compete all day long this weekend and have himself in a position to possibly win this race. The question is has he learned to have a little more patience yet, so he doesn’t have to make risky moves on the track.

Kyle Busch: Kyle was the top Toyota finishing driver at Atlanta last weekend. I think he is going to be fast all year long, but I don’t know if they can be fast enough to beat the Ford’s at this stage of the season. Kyle really has to drive his butt off to have a chance to win a race right now, but he can do that. Last year he came so close so many times only to see Martin pass him and he just couldn’t catch back up. The Gibbs teams need to find a little more speed to make things easier on their drivers.

Chase Elliott: Chase fought hard last weekend, but just couldn’t keep up at the end of the race. This looks like the best of the Chevrolet teams right now running even more consistent than Jimmie Johnson. I really think the teams are going to figure out what they need to do to set up the new Camaro so it runs faster each and every week. It might take another month or so for them to make significant headway, but it is a long season. Chase has only run at this track twice and has one top five finish to show for his efforts.

Denny Hamlin: Denny looked pretty good last week and his team ran a special strategy to try and beat Kevin. When teams do something like this they are basically saying, their car isn’t good enough to beat the top cars at the track that week so they need to do something unorthodox and hope that lady luck is smiling down on them that day. Denny is a good enough driver to keep himself in a position to win races every week.

DRIVER GROUP GAME FANTASY NASCAR PICKS FOR LAS VEGAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY

Driver Group Game Group A

  • Brad Keselowski
  • Kevin Harvick

Driver Group Game Group B

  • Kurt Busch
  • Ryan Blaney
  • Clint Bowyer
  • Aric Almirola

Driver Group Game Group C

  • Alex Bowman
  • Darrell Wallace Jr.

MY TOP-5 OVERALL AT LAS VEGAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY

  1. Brad Keselowski
  2. Kevin Harvick
  3. Martin Truex Jr.
  4. Kyle Busch
  5. Joey Logano

Dark Horse: Paul Menard

Stay Away From: Austin Dillon

Big 18: Brad Keselowski

Categories
Driver Group Game Fantasy NASCAR

2018 Atlanta Motor Speedway, FOLDS OF HONOR QUIKTRIP 500

Congratulations to Austin Dillon on winning the Daytona 500 for the first time and taking the #3 car back to victory lane there. This also gives Austin a spot in the playoffs this year and takes a lot of pressure off of this team for the short term.

Once again we had a restrictor plate race with a lot of accidents that took out most of the field, but at the same time it was quite exciting to watch with drivers challenging each other and making risky moves to gain stage points throughout the race. As I cautioned everyone before the race, don’t use the best drivers because they might get caught up in a wreck that isn’t of there own making and this happened to quite a few of them.

I will also tell everyone right now, it doesn’t matter how well or how poorly your team did in the opening race of the season. There are still thirty-five more races to go and a lot of racing left. If you took my advice for the 500 you will still be in good shape come October and November.

FOLDS OF HONOR QUIKTRIP 500

This week the series heads to the Atlanta Motor Speedway for the running of the Folds of Honor Quiktrip 500. Once again we have a long race this coming weekend with a lot of speed in it. We didn’t see a lot of engine woes all last season and that should continue here again this year. This is going to be a race where the track will change quite a bit from the beginning to the end and the teams will have to keep up with the track when making changes to the cars on pit stops.

Jimmie Johnson: Jimmie is my pick to win this week after a tough week at Daytona where he wrecked three cars in three races. He was looking plenty fast before getting knocked out at Daytona and always seems to run well at Atlanta. This can be seen by Jimmie winning two of the last five races at this track. I think this team is at the top of or farther ahead at this stage of the season than most other teams each year for some reason. Look for Johnson to visit victory lane this week.

Martin Truex Jr.: Let’s not forget what Martin did last season. Eight wins and a championship with most of those wins coming on the mile-and-a-half tracks like Atlanta. Although he didn’t win one of those eight races at Atlanta he will be strong here once again and could put this track on his list of wins for this season. It will be interesting to see if any of the other teams have improved at all and if Martin is as good or better on these tracks this year.

Kyle Busch: Last year Kyle started out with a lot of bad luck and it took him a while to get a win which he almost turned into another championship. Well, he started out on the wrong foot once again this year, but I think that is going to be short lived. Kyle has won here before and I think he is going to have something to say this week before the race is decided.

Chase Elliott: Chase looked really strong at Daytona and I look for him to have an outstanding season. He came so close so many times last year and we all know his first ever Cup win is coming soon. This is the type of track where he has been consistently strong over the past season and will probably be the type of track he gets his first win at and that might come this weekend. He finished in the top ten in his only two starts at this track last season and his confidence will be high once again entering this race.

Kevin Harvick: Kevin has been very stout over the past two season and always seems to run well here. He started his first ever Cup race at this track and won that race and hasn’t looked back since then. In his last five starts, Kevin has finished in the top ten four times at this track. He is another driver who had a disappointing week at Daytona and will be chomping at the bit to get back on the track this weekend.

Joey Logano: Last season after Joey won the spring race at Richmond and was found to be in violation during post race inspection and his win was considered encumbered by NASCAR, Joey never found his way back to top form. Well, he started his road to recovery last weekend at Daytona, where he fought back from being a lap down twice in the race to come away with a top five finish. If that doesn’t give this team a lot of confidence nothing will. Joey has two top five and three top ten finishes in his last five starts at Atlanta.

Kurt Busch: Kurt came close to pulling off back to back Daytona 500 victories this past weekend. It will be interesting to see if this team has gotten better this season and can run more consistently than they did after that win last year when you never knew which team was going to show up. I think they will show a lot of speed once again this weekend where Kurt has also finished in the top five twice and top ten three times in his last five starts here.

Kyle Larson: We didn’t hear much of Kyle last week, but I think you will hear his name called out this weekend. Kyle ran fast at these tracks all last season and I see this team doing the same thing once again this year. He has only run four race at this track and has one top five and two top ten finishes to show for his efforts. I have no fear that this team will run just as well if not better than they did last season.

Ryan Blaney: Oh so close and very disappointing for this young talented driver. He led more laps than anyone else last week at Daytona only to see his hopes and dreams dashed after a late race restart. However, he showed how talented he really is and we can all see that he is going to be a driver to be reckoned with on a weekly basis now that he is on an even better team than he was on last season. I still think he needs to learn a little more patience and when he does, look out field.

Erik Jones: Erik showed us all what he has to offer the sport last season and now that he is on a team with more than one veteran driver, he will learn a lot more quickly than he picked it up last season. I see this team getting better and better every week as the season progresses. He finished fourteenth in his only start here last year and should improve on that number this weekend.

DRIVER GROUP GAME FANTASY NASCAR PICKS FOR ATLANTA MOTOR SPEEDWAY

Driver Group Game Group A

  • Jimmie Johnson
  • Martin Truex Jr.

Driver Group Game Group B

  • Chase Elliott
  • Kurt Busch
  • Ryan Blaney
  • Erik Jones

Driver Group Game Group C

  • Alex Bowman
  • Darrell Wallace Jr.

MY TOP-5 OVERALL AT ATLANTA MOTOR SPEEDWAY

  1. Jimmie Johnson
  2. Martin Truex Jr.
  3. Chase Elliott
  4. Kyle Busch
  5. Kevin Harvick

Dark Horse: Aric Almirola

Stay Away From: Denny Hamlin

Big 18: Chase Elliott

Categories
Driver Group Game Fantasy NASCAR

2018 Daytona International Speedway, Daytona 500

DAYTONA 500

Short and sweet for the first week’s race seeing how qualifying didn’t really end until Thursday night. The rest of the season I will try to have my fantasy preview posted a few hours after the conclusion of that week’s race for the next race.

Not much to talk about in the qualifying races because there were only 40 drivers entered, so they all made the starting field. Kind of took out some of the excitement on Thursday. In the first race, Alex Bowman fell to the back on purpose at the start of the race because he is already sitting on the pole and he had nothing to gain and everything to lose if he wrecked his car. Smart move, but it also leads to some boredom and now no one really knows how he will run in the draft during the race.

We saw Jimmie Johnson crash twice this week, but I still wouldn’t be too worried about them and starting towards the back means nothing in this race. So, nothing to really worry about with Johnson, Larson, Keselowski, or Almirola. They will all be fine once the race gets settled in.

I did notice that the cars really seemed to be bouncing and drifting on the track and that tells me we might see a bunch of cautions once again in this race. That also means that most of the drivers won’t end up finishing the race, so it does pay to either run up front or fall back to a second pack early in the race and just ride around the track, which I think we will see some of the drivers do and that is all planned out.

The Ford’s really looked better than the other makes once again this year, so I am going to load up on those drivers. Other than that I caution you not to use drivers you will use all 9 times in the DGG game this year. This is a race with the potential to knock out over half of the field in one accident and as we saw in the past with David Ragan and Trevor Bayne, anyone entered in this race has a chance to win this race!

DRIVER GROUP GAME FANTASY NASCAR PICKS FOR DAYTONA

Driver Group Game Group A

  • Joey Logano
  • Brad Keselowski

Driver Group Game Group B

  • Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
  • Trevor Bayne
  • Paul Menard
  • Ty Dillon

Driver Group Game Group C

  • David Ragan
  • David Gilliland

MY TOP-5 OVERALL AT DAYTONA

  1. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
  2. Joey Logano
  3. Brad Keselowski
  4. Kevin Harvick
  5. Ryan Blaney

Dark Horse: David Ragan

Stay Away From: Kasey Kahne

Big 18: Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

Categories
Fantasy NASCAR

2018 NASCAR Fantasy Preview

First off, I would like to thank all of you for reading my articles in past years and for the great comments you have left me in the past. I would also like to thank those of you who have pointed out errors in my articles and for keeping me on my toes. Without you the articles wouldn’t be near as accurate as they should be.

Next I would like to thank the site owner, Darren, for creating a game similar to the one most of you have played in the past which I will not name here. After they decided not to run their league anymore, Darren stepped up a created his league which is going to fill a huge void for us fans of fantasy racing. Thanks for all of your time and effort to get this done in time for the 2018 season Darren!

Finally, before I get started, I would like to welcome those of you who are new to the site. I try to do my best to get my weekly articles out the day after the previous race has been completed or even that very day after the race. I mostly do an article where I make picks for the new game on this site and give a little insight in to why I am picking those drivers and who else might be good to have on your roster for that week. I also try to answer any questions asked before the race starts. If you have a question, don’t hesitate to ask no matter what it is. I only ask that you ask the questions as soon as possible as sometimes I get questions very close to race time and I don’t always get a chance to answer those.

Last year I had quite a few requests to make picks for the NASCAR Fantasy Live game. I haven’t played it before, but am considering it for this year. After reading the rules and how it is scored, I’m not sure if I can give decent advice seeing they have a score for how many positions a driver picks up during the race. My articles are out before qualifying, so I don’t know where drivers are starting in the field. I will try to answer questions from you about this league if you have them if I have time after qualifying.

I’m thinking I am going to have a lot more people asking questions this season, because I think the traffic on the site is going to really pick up with the new game here. So, I ask that you please bear with me and I will try to answer all questions in a timely manner.

I haven’t created a league of my own this year seeing the game is played right here. I did join SlickTrack’s league as he is one of the people who have played in my league for years. If anyone wants me to start a private league let me know and I will do that.

Finally, I want to explain what I term the Big 18 pool. This is a fantasy game many people play where you pick one driver every week and get that drivers points. The trick is, you can only use each driver twice during the season. When I started to play in a league the top 18 drivers were the only ones we could choose and that is where the name of the game came from. Now most leagues let you select any driver in the field, but you can still only use each driver twice.

2018 Season Predictions

I will be back to make my picks after the qualifying races for the Daytona 500 seeing we don’t have to set a roster until then because of the way they run qualifying for this race only. I just want to talk about a few things and make some predictions as to what I think is going to happen this year.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. retired, Matt Kenseth is taking a sabbatical, Chase Elliott changed from #24 to #9 which is the number his dad drove, and a handful of drivers have switched teams once again this year. We will sort all of these changes as the season progresses and we get to see if teams have improved, stayed the same, or gotten a bit further behind the rest of the field.

It is always interesting to see which rookies come out at the top of their game and can compete right away in the sport. Last year, Ryan Blaney, Erik Jones, and Daniel Suarez all improved a great deal as the season progressed with Blaney winning a race and making the playoffs, while Jones just missed them and Suarez got better and better every week. We saw Chase Elliott come oh so close time and again to getting the first Cup win of his career.

Predictions for this year:

Chase Elliott wins multiple races. This I think is a no brainer, so it is my safest prediction.

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. wins the Daytona 500. He won a race at Daytona and a race at Talladega last year.

The sixteen drivers that will make the playoffs and the order in which they will finish the season:
1. Kevin Harvick
2. Kyle Larson
3. Martin Truex Jr.
4. Kyle Busch
5. Jimmie Johnson
6. Chase Elliott
7. Denny Hamlin
8. Brad Keselowski
9. Jamie McMurray
10. Kurt Busch
11. Clint Bowyer
12. Erik Jones
13. Ryan Blaney
14. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
15. Joey Logano
16. Aric Almirola

2018 Rookie of the Year: William Byron

Anything else you would like a prediction on? Let me know and I will make my best guess.

Please come back to see my Daytona 500 picks after the qualifying races are finished and the field is set. Good luck to all of you this year and thank you once again for reading! I hope to help you all out as much as I can once again this season.