Congratulations to Cole Custer who picked up his first ever career win in the Cup Series this past weekend at Kentucky. He hadn’t really shown me much to this point of the season, but he ran towards the front of the pack most of the day on Sunday and made the most of a late race restart to get to the front on the last lap.
O’REILLY AUTO PARTS 500
The series is going to do a quick stop in Bristol this week to run their All-Star race and then the teams will head to the Texas Motor Speedway for the running of the O’Reilly Auto Parts 500. Once again they will be on a mile and a half track, but the race will be 500-miles instead of 400 like last week.
I think we will see a lot of the same drivers running well this week as they did last week at Kentucky. The temperatures might be a little warmer this week which will change the handling on the setups a bit, but they should have it within their adjustments to get the cars handling better as the race progresses.
Kevin Harvick: I’m picking Kevin to get back to the winning column after narrowly missing it last weekend. He has been great over the past month and this weekend should be no different. In his last eleven starts at this track he hasn’t finished outside the top ten. In fact, he has won three of the last five races here and finished second three times in the last eleven. Hard not to go with him this week.
Joey Logano: In his last ten starts at Texas, Joey has come away with six top five and eight top ten finishes. His lone win at this track came back in the 2014 season and this team has been very fast all year on the intermediate tracks. I think he is going to be one of the drivers to give Kevin a run for his money this week.
Martin Truex Jr.: Martin is still looking for his first win at this track and was very close to winning last weekend. He has been very good on this type of track for the past three plus seasons. In his last ten starts at Texas he has eight top ten finishes. He usually leads some laps here even if it isn’t the last lap that he is striving to lead this week.
Kurt Busch: Kurt has finished in the top ten here in his last six starts. Even though the best of those finishes was a seventh place finish he looked very good last week at Kentucky. That should carry over for this team and they should have a decent car coming of the truck this coming weekend. I think having Matt Kenseth as a teammate helps both of those teams out.
Ryan Blaney: Another driver who had a shot at winning last week, Ryan has finished in the top ten at Texas in four of his last five starts there. He came away with a runner-up finish back in the fall of 2018, so we know he can get the job done here. The Penske teams have all been fast so far this season and that won’t change this weekend.
Aric Almirola: Aric has been on a tear of his own lately. He is running up front every week for the past month and almost won the fall race here last year when he came in second. He has been second only to Kevin in the Stewart-Haas stable this year and that trend should continue once again this weekend.
Kyle Busch: Kyle has three career wins at this tracks and has finished in the top five in six of his last eleven starts there. This team has struggled a bit putting an entire race together so far this season. I’m not sure when they will break out of it, but they will before the end of the season. I’m sticking with Harvick and Truex for now.
Jimmie Johnson: With seven career wins and sixteen top five finishes in thirty-three starts we almost need to put Jimmie on our team this week. The Hendrick cars have shown the speed and Jimmie has had very good runs this year until a mistake is made either by him or he gets caught up in something on the track. I think he is going to run well this week.
Erik Jones: With five straight top ten finishes at this track and three of those being top five’s we might want to consider using Erik this week. He ran well at Kentucky this past weekend and this team needs to start improving on their finishes if Erik wants to have his contract renewed at Joe Gibbs Racing. This is one of those tracks where he can possibly come away with a win.
DRIVER GROUP GAME FANTASY NASCAR PICKS FOR TEXAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY
Driver Group Game Group A
- Kevin Harvick
- Martin Truex Jr.
Driver Group Game Group B
- Ryan Blaney
- Aric Almirola
- Jimmie Johnson
- Kurt Busch
Driver Group Game Group C
- Cole Custer
- Tyler Reddick
MY TOP-5 OVERALL AT TEXAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY
- Kevin Harvick
- Martin Truex Jr.
- Ryan Blaney
- Joey Logano
- Aric Almirola
Dark Horse: Cole Custer
Stay Away From: Chris Buescher
Big 18: Ryan Blaney
16 replies on “2020 Texas Motor Speedway, O’Reilly Auto Parts 500”
Thanks for all you do Jeff.
Are allocations reset for playoffs in DGG?
That would be up to each individual commissioner, but I don’t think they should be reset for any league. Most people have a yearly plan on how and when to use their drivers for the whole year and that would ruin it.
Best 2 B drivers regardless of number of uses.
Right now I would have to go with Blaney and Almirola.
Could the All-Star race have been any more boring? Watching it made me realize what a miracle it was that Cole Custer won last week at KY. He looked every bit the rookie last night.
Who would be the best option from these drivers-14, 20, 48, 88.
I like Johnson. Can’t hardly go wrong with a 7 time winner.
4-18-11-22-19-I have next 2 picks ? Thanks Jeff
12 and 2
Is McDowell a “safe” FD GPP play? He’s the best driver left $5500 or less. The rest of my lineup is studs + Custer.
No such thing as a safe play for any driver. If he’s the best of the best left then he is safe enough.
Thank you for all you do Jeff. Can you explain why your top 5 overall is different from your regular list of picks? And what does big 18 mean?
Top 5 might be different from my regular picks because I have to allocate my starts when I am only allowed to use a driver a certain amount of times during the season.
Big 18 is a type of game where you pick one driver each week and get their points for that week. The trick is you can only use each driver twice a year. Most people will use the top 18 drivers twice each thus the Big 18 name.
OK thank you. So when you start out by writing about each driver it is not in a particular order right, or is it? Thank you again.
Usually the first driver I write about is my pick to win that week. After that it’s just random. I do a top five at the end.
JJ or Matty D today? Thanks!