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The Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series is at Darlington Raceway this weekend for the 70th annual Bojangles’ Southern 500. And in addition to the cars looking great with their throwback paint schemes, there’s usually a lot of great racing at this old “Lady in Black.” Darlington itself is a very unique racetrack that doesn’t really compare to any on the schedule, and typically we see many of the same names up front whenever we race here.

There are quite a few statistics that go into the Power Index formula, including recent performance both overall and at Darlington specifically, similar track performance, projected strength of the car, practice speeds, starting position, and a few other variables.

Here’s a quick overview of the Power Index number: essentially, zero (0) is considered average; the more negative a number is in the Power Index, the stronger that driver is considered in the Fantasy NASCAR world. The opposite holds true as well: the more above zero a driver is, the worse he is considered for Fantasy NASCAR that week.

Bojangles’ Southern 500 Fantasy NASCAR Power Rankings

RankDriverPower
Index
1.Hamlin, Denny-58.8
2.Harvick, Kevin-52.4
3.Busch, Kyle-52.3
4.Larson, Kyle-52.1
5.Jones, Erik-50.6
6.Truex, Jr., Martin-38.2
7.Keselowski, Brad-33.7
8.Logano, Joey-26.3
9.Busch, Kurt-25.6
10.Newman, Ryan-24.4
11.Buescher, Chris-18.9
12.Elliott, Chase-15.2
13.Blaney, Ryan-11.2
14.Byron, William-5.8
15.Almirola, Aric-2.0
16.Johnson, Jimmie3.2
17.Dillon, Austin3.4
18.Bowyer, Clint4.5
19.Bowman, Alex4.7
20.DiBenedetto, Matt8.3
21.Suarez, Daniel12.6
22.Hemric, Daniel18.7
23.Stenhouse, Jr., Ricky22.2
24.Dillon, Ty23.6
25.Menard, Paul26.0
26.Preece, Ryan28.8
27.Wallace, Bubba37.5
28.McDowell, Michael44.8
29.Tifft, Matt45.5
30.LaJoie, Corey48.8
31.Ragan, David57.8
32.Chastain, Ross60.0
33.Cassill, Landon60.5
34.McLeod, BJ68.9
35.Yeley, JJ71.5
36.Sorenson, Reed77.2
37.Smithley, Garrett84.6
38.Nemechek, Joe90.9
39.Gase, Joey92.3
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As someone who has always been obsessed with numbers, Fantasy NASCAR has been the perfect fit with me. I pride myself on the quality of my analysis for each race, and am glad that I have been able to help others along the way. I've been a serious Fantasy NASCAR player for over 10 years now, and I'm just getting started.