Although the weekend off for Easter was nice–and almost necessary after that very rough race at Fontna–it’s time to get back to business with the STP 500 at Martinsville Speedway. This is our first short track stop of the season, which means a couple of things in terms of Fantasy NASCAR: one, it’s more important than ever to pick cars that are going to be good all race, because it’s very easy to go down a lap at a half-mile race track, and two, qualifying means a lot more than normal due to how short this track is. It’s not impossible to come from the back at Martinsville, but it’s not an ideal situation, that’s for sure.
For the second race in a row, it’s going to be very important to make the correct decisions in the B Group for the Yahoo! Fantasy NASCAR game. The good news is is that there’s quite a few solid options this week, and there’s some good “start save” options as well.
Yahoo! A Group Picks for Martinsville
Jimmie Johnson (9 starts remaining) – Well, this #48 team has already racked up two victories in 2016 and we have missed out on both of them with our Yahoo! team. With 9 starts remaining with Jimmie Johnson, it’s time to ‘unleash the beast.’ Jimmie is an 8-time winner here at Martinsville Speedway and owns a series-best 7.5 average finish here over his 28 total career starts. He has also led over 2,700 laps here at “The Paperclip,” which more than doubles the guy who is 2nd on the list in terms of laps led: Denny Hamlin (1,315). Although Johnson hasn’t finished better than 12th here at Martinsville over the last three events, it wouldn’t surprise anyone if he made it to victory lane once again in the STP 500 on Sunday. This #48 team has been one of the best with this new low downforce package in 2016, and Martinsville has been a great track for Jimmie Johnson.
Joey Logano (9 starts remaining) – There’s quite few drivers that we could plug into this spot to go along with Jimmie Johnson. Historically, Denny Hamlin probably has the best history here at “The Paperclip” among the rest of the drivers, while Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch should also both be serious contenders in the STP 500. But we’re going with Joey Logano as our second A Group driver this week for a couple of reasons. First, the #22 Ford has the 3rd-best average running position over the first five races of the 2016 season, coming in right behind Kevin Harvick and Jimmie Johnson. Also, although Logano has never won a race here at Martinsville, his victory is coming soon. Joey hasn’t started a race worse than 6th here over the last six events, and he won the pole for both Martinsville races in 2015. He led 315 total laps between those two events and probably would have won the fall race if it wasn’t for Matt Kenseth exacting his revenge. It’s going to be between Logano and Hamlin for our second B Group spot this week, and right now we’re going with the former.
Yahoo! B Group Picks for Martinsville
Martin Truex, Jr. (8 starts remaining) – Our strategy in this B Group (as far as saving starts) is to only use Truex and Carl Edwards whenever they can possibly win the race, or seem like “for sure” top 5 picks. We also like to keep one of them on our roster just as a backup driver in case the rest of our team looks really bad heading into race day. Now, the reason we’re going with the #78 Toyota this week at Martinsville is because, quite simply, we think the alliance with JGR is really going to help Truex at this track. We all know how good the Gibbs cars have been here, and Truex finished 6th in each Martinsville race in 2015. Plus we only have 7 starts remaining with old Concrete Carl. Martin hasn’t posted a top 5 finish here since the 2012 season but that could easily change here on Sunday.
Jamie McMurray (9 starts remaining) – This #1 team got their first top 10 finish of the season at Fontana and will be looking to grab two in a row here at Martinsville on Sunday. And it wouldn’t surprise us one but if they accomplished that. This has been a nice little track for Jamie Mac over the last few years, especially last year’s fall race when he finished runner-up to race winner Jeff Gordon. In terms of average drive rating, only four drivers have been better than Jamie here over the last two years, and all of those are in the A Group. To cap it all off, McMurray has four top 10 finishes in the last six races here at “The Paperclip,” and if we can’t get that kind of finish out of him here on Sunday, we’ll be more than happy about it.
Aric Almirola (9 starts remaining) – Due to the fact that we only have 6 starts remaining with Austin Dillon, we’re going to go with some other guys this week and give the #3 Chevrolet a break. Aric Almirola is an intriguing option this week at Martinsville because he has had some surprisingly solid runs here over the past few years, including an 8th-place finish in this race two years ago and results of 8th and 4th in the two races here during the 2012 season. Last year, Almirola came home 12th in this race and then 16th in the fall event. Aric has three top 15s through the first five races of the 2016 season, although this #43 team hasn’t broken through with a top 10 yet. It’ll come eventually, though. It’ll be hard to start Almirola this Sunday unless he qualifies up front, but he did start 8th in last year’s fall race. We also considered Ryan Newman in this spot but, right now, we can’t really trust “The Rocketman.”
A.J. Allmendinger (9 starts remaining) – Hear us out here. This is going to be a pretty large risk for our Yahoo! team, but it just feels like a good week to take a chance on a sleeper–and there’s none better than A.J. Allmendinger. First let’s look at the recent races here at Martinsville: A.J. finished 11th in the 2015 fall race after starting 3rd, and he ran 11th and 9th in the two races here during the 2014 season. He posted a career-best finish of 2nd here in 2012 while with Penske, and although he won’t have that good of a car here this weekend, the JTG Daugherty Racing machine hasn’t performed too bad thus far in 2016; Allmendinger posted his first top 10 finish of the season at Fontana a couple of weeks ago, and preceded that with a 17th-place finish at Phoenix and a 14th-place run at Las Vegas. If you’re looking for a “start save” pick this week, The Dinger is your guy, as he has just two finishes worse than 14th over his last nine Martinsville starts.
Yahoo! C Group Picks for Martinsville
Well, one of these weeks we’re going to make the right choice in the C Group. At Fontana, somehow Brian Vickers overcame early mechanical issues and ended up finishing 13th, while our pick, Ryan Blaney, had late race issues that the team wasn’t able to fix (somehow) and came home with a 35th-place result. Congratulations to all of those teams that decided to go with the #14 driver in the last race, and it should be noted that Vickers is in that car once again for the Martinsville race.
In order to make the start math work in this C Group, we have to have Brian Vickers on our roster this week (and whoever is in the #14 Chevrolet during other races). So, as usual, the second choice comes down to either Ryan Blaney or Chase Elliott. Although we like Blaney, we’re not sold on this #21 team’s expertise on these short tracks, and Elliott is driving the #24 Chevrolet, which just so happened to go to victory lane here in last year’s fall race. Our C Group drivers will be Brian Vickers and Chase Elliott for Martinsville, both of which we have 8 starts remaining.
