2016 New Hampshire Motor Speedway, New England 300

Congratulations to Martin Truex Jr. who won the first race of this year’s Chase and is now qualified for the second round of the playoffs. Chase Elliott came close to winning the first race of his career once again, but was foiled by a late race caution where he came out of the pits just behind Truex and couldn’t make up the gap in the final laps. Joey Logano came in second, Elliott third, non-Chaser Ryan Blaney was fourth, and Brad Keselowski rounds out the top five.

NEW ENGLAND 300

For the second race in this round of the Chase we will travel back to the New Hampshire Motor Speedway. NHMS is a slightly longer than one-mile oval speedway. This track, also known as “The Magic Mile”, hosts two races each season and used to be the opening race of the Chase until a few years ago. It is a fairly flat track in comparison to most other tracks on the circuit, so we will look at the drivers who run well on this type of track.

Matt Kenseth: Matt is my pick to win the race this weekend. He has won the last two races at this track, so this team has something figured out with the setup and adjustments that need to be made to keep up with changing track conditions. Matt has three wins overall at this track and eighteen top ten finishes in thirty-three starts here. I think his patience and calm demeanor really help him at this track.
Denny Hamlin: Denny always seems to run very well at this track and has two wins and thirteen top ten finishes in his twenty-one starts here to show for it. After winning the race at Richmond just before the Chase started you have to consider putting him on your team as that is a similar though slightly shorter track than Loudon. As I said last week, Denny’s pit crew has been spot on lately and that will get you a lot of spots on the track.

Jimmie Johnson: Jimmie is another driver with three wins to his credit at NHMS and nineteen top ten finishes in twenty-nine starts here. This team looked very good last week at Chicago and maybe that will turn their fortunes around as the Chase progresses. I think that with the amount of intermediate tracks on the Chase schedule this team will have a shot at winning another championship if they can avoid any hiccups on the way to Homestead.

Tony Stewart: Tony finished second in the race here earlier this season and has won three times. Winning a race would go a long way in ensuring Tony doesn’t get eliminated in the first round as this team hasn’t been very consistent this year and if you have one bad race out of three it might be enough to knock you out. Getting the win gets you the automatic pass to the next round.

Brad Keselowski: Brad has one win here during his short career and always seems to run well on this type of track. After coming away with a top five finish at Chicago this team is positioned to move on with another good run this weekend. Brad just needs to stay out of trouble on the track and he will get the adjustments he needs to make his car competitive at the end of the race.

Kevin Harvick: Kevin got caught on pit road at Chicago under a green flag stop when the caution came out and trapped him a lap down. He never got to make that lap up and it cost him all of the bonus points he entered the Chase with. There is a little pressure on this team now as they can’t afford to have another poor finish and the pit crew hasn’t been at the top of their game this year.

Joey Logano: Joey has two win at this track and eight top ten finishes in his sixteen starts. He has also finished in the top four in his last four races here. After coming away with a second place finish at Chicago last weekend this is another team that is sitting in the driver seat so to speak as they try to move on to the second round of the Chase.

Kyle Busch: Kyle has finished first or second in four of his last seven starts here. Those are impressive stats at any track and this team needs to get back to their winning ways. They came back from a pit road speeding penalty to pick up a top ten finish last weekend and avoided putting a lot of pressure on themselves in the first round of the Chase.

Kyle Larson: Kyle has two top five finishes in only five starts at this track. They stumbled a little bit last week at Chicago when a tire problem took them out of contention for a top ten finish and now they need to come back with a great finish to keep the pressure off. It is hard to fathom how much pressure is on these teams when they only have three races to move on to the next round and one slip up can knock you out.

Kurt Busch: Kurt has won three times at this track and this team needs another good run or a win to get themselves back on track. Kurt has struggled here a bit over the past twelve races here with only two top ten finishes and those were both tenth. They can’t afford to let an opportunity at a short track pass them by as this is where they usually make hay.

YAHOO! FANTASY NASCAR PICKS FOR NEW HAMPSHIRE MOTOR SPEEDWAY

Yahoo Driver Group A

• Matt Kenseth
• Kyle Busch

Yahoo Driver Group B

• Kyle Larson
• Tony Stewart
• Ryan Newman
• Greg Biffle

Yahoo Driver Group C

• Chase Elliott
• Ryan Blaney

MY TOP-5 OVERALL AT NEW HAMPSHIRE MOTOR SPEEDWAY

1. Matt Kenseth
2. Kyle Busch
3. Joey Logano
4. Denny Hamlin
5. Kevin Harvick

Dark Horse: Greg Biffle

Stay Away From: Kurt Busch

Big 18: Ryan Newman