The nice part about the Yahoo! Fantasy Auto Racing game at a track like Talladega Superspeedway is the whole locking in your roster before qualifying. It’s nice because it limits your options to pick from on race day. When it comes to the big restrictor plate races, anything and everything can happen during the race, and it wouldn’t be overly surprising if a guy like Matt DiBenedetto had another top 10 run here on Sunday (like it was back at Bristol). If you’re like us, you pretty much knew who you were going to start this weekend before locking in, so we’d recommend just going with your gut picks and enjoy the race.
Yahoo! A Group Pick and Final Rankings for Talladega
Almost two in three Yahoo! teams have Dale Earnhardt, Jr. on them (including our’s), which is really not surprising at all. Now the question becomes how many of those teams are going to start him. Doing that would be the safest play here at Talladega on Sunday because Junior is simply the best driver at these big restrictor plate tracks. However, as we saw at Daytona earlier this year, he’s not prone to wrecking or having mechanical issues, and if the #88 Chevrolet ends up with problems in Sunday’s GEICO 500, that opens up the door for a lot of points to be made up by other teams.
Our other A Group driver this weekend is Denny Hamlin, this year’s Daytona 500 champion. Denny also won the spring race here at Talladega two years ago. Our Fantasy Racing Online Yahoo! team has gotten off to a terrible start this season and we’re sitting pretty far back. We’ll think we would probably regret it if we benched him, though, so we’re going to roll with Dale Earnhardt, Jr. on Sunday.
Final A Group Rankings: (1) Dale Earnhardt, Jr., (2) Jimmie Johnson, (3) Kyle Busch, (4) Denny Hamlin, (5) Brad Keselowski, (6) Kevin Harvick, (7) Kurt Busch, (8) Joey Logano, (9) Matt Kenseth
Yahoo! B Group Picks and Final Rankings for Talladega
There have been at least a couple races this season that we had Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. as our sleeper pick of the week, put him on our Yahoo! roster, but then never pulled the trigger and started him on race day. That’s going to change this weekend. Statistically, Stenhouse is the best pick here at Talladega Superspeedway, believe it or not. In five career starts here, Ricky has an average finish of 12.2, which is the best among all drivers (yes, even Dale Earnhardt, Jr.). Usually the #17 Ford qualifies near the back and stays there all race, but this weekend that didn’t happen. Stenhouse made it to the final round of that special qualifying session and will start Sunday’s GEICO 500 from the 6th place. Being able to run a strong qualifying lap here at Talladega should translate into strong race speed as well. So one of our B picks is already set, although we fully expect Stenhouse to drop back as soon as the green flag drops on Sunday. Hopefully he can go up there and lead a lap and get us some bonus points, that’d be nice.
Now we have to decide between Jamie McMurray, Kasey Kahne, and Danica Patrick. All three have had their ups and downs here at Talladega Superspeedway, but from a statistical standpoint, Jamie McMurray is probably the best pick because of his two wins here. That #1 team has also been a consistently-finishing machine all season long. On the other hand, Kasey Kahne might have the most speed in his car, as he qualified 11th this weekend. With that being said, Kasey started 2nd in both Talladega races last season and finished 34th and 19th. As far as Danica goes, that start would just be trying to catch lightning in a bottle, and we’re not willing to do that. She’s never finished better than 19th at Talladega. We’re going with Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. and Jamie McMurray in the B Group on Sunday.
Final B Group Rankings: (1) Carl Edwards (2) Martin Truex, Jr., (3) Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., (4) Austin Dillon, (5) Paul Menard, (6) Ryan Newman, (7) Jamie McMurray, (8) Kasey Kahne, (9) Aric Almirola, (10) Kyle Larson, (11) Tony Stewart, (12) Casey Mears, (13) Trevor Bayne, (14) Greg Biffle, (15) A.J. Allmendinger, (16) Danica Patrick, (17) Clint Bowyer
Yahoo! C Group Pick and Final Rankings for Talladega
Honestly, with the C Group drivers this weekend, you’re probably just starting one and hoping for the best. It would be foolish to waste a Chase Elliott or Ryan Blaney start in a race as unpredictable as Talladega, and that goes both ways: might as well try and capture a good finish from one of the other C Group drivers that you probably won’t think about more than once or twice a year. Our two C Group picks for Sunday’s GEICO 500 were Brian Scott and Landon Cassill, and we told ourselves we would start the one that qualified better. So it looks like we’re going with Brian Scott on Sunday.
Final C Group Rankings: (1) Chase Elliott, (2) Ryan Blaney, (3) Brian Scott, (4) Regan Smith (5) Landon Cassill, (6) Chris Beuscher, (7) Matt DiBenedetto, (8) Michael Waltrip, the rest
What about Paul over jamie?
Definitely, I would if I had Menard.