Well, we went from not much recent data to go off of for the race at Darlington on Sunday, to now a bunch of data to analyze for the Wednesday night race at The Lady in Black. The algorithm has been fed the speed data from the race on Sunday, as well as the new starting positions for this mid-week race coming up, and it’s computed the new predicted finishing order. It should be no surprise that Kevin Harvick is the projected winner yet again.
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.
Toyota 500(k) Fantasy NASCAR Power Rankings
| Rank | Driver | Power Index |
| 1. | Harvick, Kevin | -49.1 |
| 2. | Keselowski, Brad | -41.0 |
| 3. | Bowman, Alex | -37.1 |
| 4. | Jones, Erik | -35.6 |
| 5. | Truex, Jr., Martin | -29.7 |
| 6. | Hamlin, Denny | -29.5 |
| 7. | Reddick, Tyler | -27.9 |
| 8. | Elliott, Chase | -26.8 |
| 9. | Busch, Kurt | -26.5 |
| 10. | Busch, Kyle | -26.4 |
| 11. | Logano, Joey | -23.4 |
| 12. | Bowyer, Clint | -20.7 |
| 13. | Johnson, Jimmie | -20.1 |
| 14. | Kenseth, Matt | -14.1 |
| 15. | Newman, Ryan | -14.1 |
| 16. | Byron, William | -13.7 |
| 17. | Almirola, Aric | -6.7 |
| 18. | Blaney, Ryan | -2.3 |
| 19. | Dillon, Austin | -1.5 |
| 20. | Nemechek, John H | 6.9 |
| 21. | DiBenedetto, Matt | 10.6 |
| 22. | Bell, Christopher | 13.0 |
| 23. | Custer, Cole | 18.3 |
| 24. | Buescher, Chris | 19.2 |
| 25. | Dillon, Ty | 31.6 |
| 26. | Preece, Ryan | 34.8 |
| 27. | Stenhouse, Jr., Ricky | 41.7 |
| 28. | McDowell, Michael | 42.6 |
| 29. | Wallace, Bubba | 42.9 |
| 30. | Suarez, Daniel | 43.2 |
| 31. | LaJoie, Corey | 46.5 |
| 32. | Poole, Brennan | 50.3 |
| 33. | Chastain, Ross | 55.6 |
| 34. | Houff, Quin | 59.1 |
| 35. | Gaulding, Gray | 61.4 |
| 36. | Gase, Joey | 62.9 |
| 37. | Smithley, Garrett | 65.8 |
| 38. | Hill, Timmy | 69.7 |
| 39. | McLeod, BJ | 70.4 |
