NASCAR Fantasy Live Picks, 2014 Sonoma, Toyota / Save Mart 350

Now that Jimmie Johnson and the 48 team have started their domination mode that we are all familiar with, Nascar moves west to wine country for the first of two road races this season. Due to the nature of the road course, Sonoma is one of the more predictable tracks of the season. Generally, drivers who traditionally run at the top finish at the top, while those who struggle will continue to perform poorly. The end result is good news for the fantasy players at the top of the standings and little opportunity to gain points on the leaders for the players at the bottom.

On tracks that are predictable, my strategy is to pick my drivers from the top-down. In other words, find the best choices and fill in with the best options available with whatever money is remaining. The top three average finishers over the last five years at Sonoma are Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon, and Marcos Ambrose. All three averaged a top five finish since 2009. Combined, they will take $77 of the $100 salary cap budget, and they should be worth their cost.

Jimmie Johnson had been unstoppable in the last month. If he has a bad finish, I cannot regret taking the series leader during a hot streak. He is averaging 48.5 points per Sonoma race and 1.73 fantasy points per dollar. My biggest concern with starting Johnson is that he has not led a lap at Sonoma since 2009. That being said, his fantasy live point total over the past five years is the most of any driver.

The second selection is a toss-up between Jeff Gordon and Clint Bowyer. Both drivers will perform well. Bowyer has a slightly higher point total than Gordon with a lower salary cap figure. The edge goes to Gordon due to Gordon’s better performance over the course of the 2014 season. His team has been one of the most consistent on a week-to-week basis. Like Johnson, Gordon is low of the total laps led with only 17 in the last five years, and this is his only drawback.

My third pick was initially an easy choice with Marcos Ambrose until I noticed I had enough cap space for Kurt Busch. Kurt Busch is the only driver to lead a lap in four of the last five Sonoma races. His 94 laps led is the most of any driver. While Busch has experienced more recent success, Ambrose is more consistent over the last ten years. His 64 laps led is fourth among all drivers. With the new Chase format, his team knows this is one of the few races they can realistically win. Marcos Ambrose will be driving to win on Sunday.

With only $23 remaining, we were lucky to scrap together two solid options with the rest of the cap money. Boris Said only has a $7.50 cap figure. Although he is not as dominant at the road courses as he once was, Said still is averaging a 21st place finish and led eight laps in 2010. His 3.31 points per fantasy dollar is the highest of any driver. David Gilliland performs adequately at Sonoma with a 22nd place average sine 2009. He will not challenge to win the race, but should finish in the middle and provide value for his $12.50 cap figure. Outside of the five drivers chosen above, other options I like who missed the cut include AJ Allmendinger, Tony Stewart, Casey Mears, and Martin Truex Jr.

The salary cap formula used in this article determines how many fantasy points to expect from each fantasy dollar.

FANTASY NASCAR LIVE SALARY CAP

Fantasy Live on Nascar.com uses a salary cap formula in order to prevent you from simply starting the best drivers every week. Their scoring system combines laps led, fast laps, finish position, and start-to-finish differential. This formula tallies the total points earned by each driver over the last five years and divides this figure by the fantasy live salary cap number. The end result is a number that predicts the number of points to expect per fantasy dollar for each driver.

For further clarification, see the example of Marcos Ambrose at Sonoma below:

MARCOS AMBROSE AT SONOMA

• Total laps led last five years: 64 (6.4 fantasy points per race)
• Fast laps: Cannot be calculated with 100% accuracy
• Finish position: 4th place (40 fantasy points per race)
• Start-to-finish differential: Minus 2 equals minus 2 fantasy points
• Total points per Sonoma race: 44.4
• Fantasy Live Salary Cap Figure: 21.24
• Fantasy points per dollar: 44.4/21.24 equals 2.09

We will use 2014 totals for drivers with no historical data at the track. The points per fantasy dollar for each driver are below. Suggested drivers this week are in bold:

GROUP A ($25.00 or higher)

• Clint Bowyer 1.79
• Jimmie Johnson 1.73
• Jeff Gordon 1.65
• Carl Edwards 1.30
• Kevin Harvick 1.28
• Brad Keselowski 1.01
• Joey Logano 0.94
• Matt Kenseth 0.91
• Dale Earnhardt Jr. 0.84
• Kyle Busch 0.37

GROUP B ($20.00 – $24.99)

• Marcos Ambrose 2.09
• Kurt Busch 1.80
• Kasey Kahne 1.52
• Kyle Larson 1.43
• Austin Dillon 1.40
• Brian Vickers 1.31
• Aric Almirola 1.22
• Tony Stewart 1.12
• Greg Biffle 1.12
• Paul Menard 1.09
• Jamie McMurray 1.03
• Martin Truex Jr. 1.02
• Ryan Newman 0.88
• Denny Hamlin 0.41

GROUP C ($15.00 – $19.99)

• AJ Allmendinger 2.14
• Justin Allgaier 1.27
• Casey Mears 1.19

GROUP D ($10.00 – $14.99)

• David Gilliland 2.24
• David Ragan 1.95
• Danica Patrick 1.22

GROUP E ($9.99 or lower)

• Boris Said 3.31
• Landon Cassill 3.10
• Josh Wise 2.67
• Michael Annett 2.21
• Cole Whitt 1.76
• JJ Yeley 1.69
• Alex Bowman 1.41
• Ryan Truex 0.86
• Joe Nemecheck (-0.68)
• Reed Sorenson (-1.18)