Yahoo! Fantasy Auto Racing players got a couple breaks this weekend. First was Jeff Gordon being placed into the C Group, which means we have an excellent start save option for this week’s race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway as well as next week’s race at Pocono. The second break we got was being able to see practice before locking down–although sometimes it’s more difficult to analyze those practice sessions as opposed to a “normal” weekend. As mentioned in our FOX Fantasy Auto picks post this week, starting position doesn’t mean a whole lot here. With that being said, starting up front is always more re-assuring for the fantasy owner, and we saw the drivers that started up front at Pocono last month also finish there, so that’s something to remember.

Last week at Loudon, we had top 10 finishers Greg Biffle and Ryan Newman on our bench while we started Carl Edwards and Kyle Larson, who both disappointed. We ended up with 234 points and fell down to the 63rd percentile overall.

Yahoo! A Group Pick and Final Rankings for Indy

Our initial picks in the A Group for Yahoo! this week were Matt Kenseth and Joey Logano, but after the two practice sessions on Friday, we decided to go with Kyle Busch and Jimmie Johnson instead. Honestly, that #48 Chevrolet had one of the best cars on Friday, and if he’s going to break out of this little (actually, pretty big) slump he’s in, why not at a track where he’s won at four times? Yes, just one top 10 finish since April is very concerning–and it shows with only 15% of teams rostering Johnson this week–but we can’t argue with speed.

Johnson was fastest in Practice #1 this week and ranked 7th on the overall speed chart in Happy Hour with the 4th-best ten-lap average. Kyle Busch, on the other hand, posted the fastest lap in that final session and had the 2nd-best ten-lap average. He’s also the defending winner of this race. Kyle Busch is probably the safer pick this weekend, but both he and the #48 should be contenders here on Sunday. We’re going to start Kyle Busch, though, because he starts on the pole and he has that badass Skittles paint scheme this weekend. Sometimes you just have to go with the crowd in this game, and Kyle Busch was rostered by almost half of all Yahoo! teams this week.

Kevin Harvick has a car strong enough to contend here on Sunday, and has had one of the best at Indianapolis over the past couple of years as well. But with how this pit crew continues to screw him over week after week, we think it’s better to hold off on using him until the Chase or until changes are made to that crew. Harvick won’t win another race until changes are made. Kyle Busch, Johnson, and Harvick were the three best A Group drivers on Friday, but Denny Hamlin through his name into the mix by focusing on race runs in Happy Hour and posting the best ten-lap average. He’s also finished top 5 in the last two Brickyard races, so he’s a nice off-sequence pick as well. The rest of the A Group drivers are top 10 at best going into Sunday but you never know how these races are going to play out. If you have any of the four mentioned above on your roster, though, we think you have to start one of those guys. One note we would like to make about Joey Logano: he has been disappointing this whole weekend, and we’re not sure why. He’s been really good here over the last few years, but this might be the Brickyard race to avoid him…

Final A Group Rankings: (1) Kyle Busch, (2) Kevin Harvick, (3) Jimmie Johnson, (4) Denny Hamlin, (5) Brad Keselowski, (6) Kurt Busch, (7) Matt Kenseth, (8) Joey Logano

Yahoo! B Group Picks and Final Rankings for Indy

Carl Edwards made our roster this weekend but it was only for potential qualifying points, so that eliminates him as a potential starter right away. That leaves Ryan Newman, Tony Stewart, and Kasey Kahne, all of whom had pretty good practice sessions on Friday. “The Rocketman” had good speed off the truck, which doesn’t happen often. He was 5th-fastest in Practice #1 and ranked 4th in Happy Hour. He hasn’t finished worse than 12th here at Indianapolis since the 2010 season, and that streak includes his win here in 2013.

Kasey Kahne has also looked pretty good this weekend, ranking 11th on the Practice #1 speed chart and 5th on the ten-lap average chart in Happy Hour. It’s never easy to trust Kahne but he does have six finishes of 13th or better in the last eight Indianapolis races and has been running pretty well overall over the last few months. Tony Stewart has been as well, with four finishes of 7th or better in the last five Sprint Cup races. He’s making his final start here at The Brickyard on Sunday and that #14 team has been improving on the car all weekend long. Smoke may not look like a great fantasy option heading into the Crown Royal Presents the Combat Wounded Coalition 400, but he should be there in the end.

As far as the other B Group drivers go, Carl Edwards has finished between 13th and 15th in four of the last five Indianapolis races. He’s shown decent speed this weekend but we don’t think it’s worth a start. Martin Truex, Jr. should at least be a top 10 threat (if not top 5), but he’s still hitting bad luck on a pretty consistent basis. We think there are other viable B Group options to use to save a Truex start. Speaking of bad luck, Kyle Larson says that he’s running into that a lot lately, but we disagree. We think it’s an incompetent crew chief on the pit box. Still, Larson has finished 7th and 9th in his two career Brickyard starts and posted a top 5 lap in Happy Hour on Friday.

Jamie McMurray and Austin Dillon have shown top 15 potential this weekend, and Paul Menard is one of the most consistent top 15 finishers here at Indianapolis (five in the last six races). If you’re looking for a sleeper, A.J. Allmendinger is your guy. He had top 15 speed in both practice sessions on Friday and has never finished worse than 23rd in seven career starts at this track. Greg Biffle is running well as of late and getting top 10 finishes, but it’s the same story every week: he never looks that good in practice or qualifying (or both) so it’s hard to recommend him with confidence. By the way, we plan on starting Tony Stewart and Ryan Newman on Sunday.

Final B Group Rankings: (1) Tony Stewart, (2) Martin Truex, Jr. (3) Carl Edwards, (4) Ryan Newman, (5) Austin Dillon, (6) Kyle Larson, (7) Jamie McMurray, (8) Greg Biffle, (9) Kasey Kahne, (10) Paul Menard, (11) Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. (12) Trevor Bayne, (13) Danica Patrick, (14) A.J. Allmendinger, (15) Aric Almirola, (16) Casey Mears, (17) Clint Bowyer

Yahoo! C Group Pick and Final Rankings for Indy

Yahoo! Fantasy Auto players that haven’t been wise with their Chase Elliott and Ryan Blaney starts this season got a huge–huge!–gift this weekend when it was announced that Jeff Gordon will race here at Indianapolis and was then subsequently placed into the C Group. No matter what your start situation is with these lower drivers, you have to have Jeff Gordon as your C Group starter this weekend. The only excuse not to is if you don’t have him on your team, and if that’s so, we can’t help you. Gordon is in top tier equipment, if a five-time winner at this race track, and has seven top 10 finishes in the last nine Brickyard races. Jeff Gordon should be the C Group starter for everyone playing this game, no questions asked. In order to make the start math work this season, you basically have to. Plus, he was pretty speedy in practice this weekend, posting the 9th-best lap in Practice #1 on Friday.

Final C Group Rankings: (1) Ryan Blaney, (2) Chase Elliott, (3) Jeff Gordon, (4) David Ragan, (5) Michael McDowell, (6) Chris Buescher, (7) Landon Cassill, (8) Regan Smith, the rest

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The annual Brickyard race is this weekend at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, which is a very big (2.5-mile) flat track. Like last weekend at Loudon, you should once again expect the Joe Gibbs Racing Toyotas to be the class of the field in Sunday’s Crown Royal Presents the Combat Wounded Coalition 400. The biggest storyline of the weekend, however will be whether or not Dale Earnhardt, Jr. is going to be back racing in that #88 Chevrolet, or whether Jeff Gordon will replace him. As of this post, there was no official word on that, but as soon as news breaks, we will come back and update our post–as that could have big implications on our picks and rankings.

[EDIT: It was announced on July 20, 2016 that Jeff Gordon will replace Dale Earnhardt, Jr. at Indianapolis and at Pocono next week. He is in the C Group.]

Yahoo! A Group Picks and Ranking for Indy

Matt Kenseth (8 starts remaining) – We have a feeling that, for the second week in a row, Sunday’s race is going to favor the Joe Gibbs Racing Toyotas in a big way. Indianapolis is a very big and very flat race track, and those JGR engines should shine on Sunday. Last week, Matt Kenseth grabbed his third career win at Loudon, and he should be a factor here in Indy as well–despite the fact that he has never been to victory lane here. With that being said, Kenseth has posted seven top 5 finishes in his sixteen career starts here (46.7%) and has ended up 7th or better in each of the last three races here, which all happened while he was in a Gibbs car. With eight starts remaining, we’ll gladly put Kenseth on our team this week to try and save some Harvick and Kyle Busch starts for when it really matters: the Chase.

Joey Logano (7 starts remaining) – Initially we had Kyle Busch in this spot, but as of now we’re leaning toward putting Logano on our Indy team. The main reason is because we’re down to 6 starts remaining with Busch and we would like to preserve them if possible. Plus, Logano has turned into a pretty good racer, and with the comeback that this #22 team had at Loudon last weekend, that had to give them a big boost of confidence. Luckily for fantasy owners, Logano probably won’t be using an experimental setup at Indianapolis this weekend due to the fact that it’s not a Chase race and we only visit this track once a year. He just wants to kiss the bricks. Joey posted a career-best finish of 2nd here last season and that makes it two top 5 finishes in a row for him at this track. As far as average driver rating, Logano’s 113.5 average over the last two years here is 3rd-best behind Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch.

Last weekend, Kyle Busch had a dominant race car at Loudon but faded in the second half. That seems to be a trend with this #18 team right now. With that being said, Busch is the defending winner of this race and has finished 1st or 2nd in three of the last four races here. He should be a contender this weekend, as should Kevin Harvick (like normal). We’re still questioning Harvick’s clutch gene, though. Denny Hamlin has back-to-back top 5 finishes here at Indianapolis but has just one top 5 in the last six Sprint Cup races. And speaking of momentum, Jimmie Johnson once again finished outside of the top 10 at Loudon last week. He’s a four-time winner here at Indy, though, so you can never count him out. Brad Keselowski has never finished better than 9th here but we think that could easily change this weekend. Kurt Busch has one top 5 finish in fifteen career starts here.

UPDATE AFTER PRACTICE: Jimmie Johnson has a very fast race car and this could be the race he finally turns things around. Denny Hamlin also showed quite a bit of speed in Happy Hour on Friday. We’re switching to Kyle Busch and Jimmie Johnson in the A Group for Indianapolis.

Pre-Lockdown A Group Rankings: (1) Kevin Harvick, (2) Kyle Busch, (3) Matt Kenseth, (4) Jimmie Johnson, (5) Denny Hamlin, (6) Joey Logano, (7) Brad Keselowski, (8) Kurt Busch

Yahoo! B Group Picks and Ranking for Indy

Greg Biffle (8 starts remaining) – We’re still kicking ourselves for not starting Greg Biffle at Loudon last weekend. However, you can’t dwell on the past in Fantasy NASCAR, only focus on the future. That now makes it three straight top 10 finishes for this #16 team, and while they may not have that kind of finish in the bag heading into this weekend’s race at Indianapolis, it wouldn’t surprise us one bit if the #16 Ford wound up in a good spot when the checkered flag flies on Sunday. It’s no secret that the Roush-Fenway Fords have majorly improved this season, so while Biffle’s last three finishes here aren’t great (19th, 13th, and 24th), you can’t overlook the fact that he had five straight top 10s here at The Brickyard from 2008 to 2012. This is a bit of a risky pick, but if starting Greg Biffle turns out to be a good choice, he makes a great start save option in Yahoo! Fantasy Auto Racing this week.

Tony Stewart (8 starts remaining) – The “feel good story” of the season continued at Loudon last weekend as Tony Stewart came home with a solid 2nd-place finish–his third top 5 in the last four Sprint Cup races and fourth finish of 7th or better in the last five. Now we’re at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, which is Smoke’s home race track–and statistically the best track on the circuit for him. Stewart owns a career average finish of 9.7 here over his seventeen starts and has kissed the bricks twice, most recently back in 2007 when he was still driving for Joe Gibbs. We’re sure Smoke would love nothing more than to win here at The Brickyard in his (probably) final attempt, and we can’t say that he won’t have a shot, especially with how this team is running. Stewart has had a rough past two years here at Indianapolis (finishes of 28th and 17th) but he qualified well in those races (4th and 6th) and before that he had nine top 10 finishes in the last ten Brickyard races. It’s starting to seem like Tony Stewart is back to his old summer self and that means you should hop right on that bandwagon sooner rather than later.

Ryan Newman (6 starts remaining) – “The Rocketman” is another Indiana-born driver that can always be counted on for a pretty good finish when we stop at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Newman won this race from the pole back in 2013 but that’s one of just three top 10s in fifteen career starts here. With that being said, he has finished inside the top 15 in seven of the last eight races ran here, and that’s right about where we envision the #31 Chevrolet ending up on Sunday as well. Momentum-wise, Newman has six finishes of 12th or better over the last seven Sprint Cup races and looks to finally be getting back into that groove as “Mr. Consistency.” There might be some other options in the B Group this week that can replace Newman, but we feel like he’s one of the safer options available and we still have 6 starts remaining with him.

Kasey Kahne (7 starts remaining) – As far as top 10 finishes go, Kasey Kahne is batting .500 here at Indianapolis Motor Speedway with six of them posted in his twelve career starts. What we like even more, though, is the fact that he has ended up 13th or better in six of the last eight races here, and that kind of reliability from Kasey Kahne is rare. This #5 team has been bringing very fast race cars to the track for the last month or two and we fully expect that trends to continue at The Brickyard this weekend. As mentioned before, it takes elite equipment to run well at a track like Indy, and you can’t say Hendrick Motorsports without thinking of it as elite. Statistically, this is one of Kahne’s better race tracks on the circuit, and his 158 career laps led here is 4th-most among active drivers.

Martin Truex, Jr. should have another great race car at Indianapolis this weekend, it’s just going to come down to whether or not he can get the finish he deserves. That doesn’t happen more often than it does. Truex did finish 4th in this race last year, though, and would be on our roster if we had more than 4 starts remaining. Carl Edwards is in a Gibbs car and should have plenty of speed this weekend, but he hasn’t had a top 5 finish at Indianapolis since 2008 and we think his starts will be more valuable later on down the road. He still may make our roster as a backup plan, though. In two career starts here, Kyle Larson has finished 7th and 9th, but that #42 team is starting to under-perform again and we don’t like that. If we had more starts with him (we have 4), he’d still probably make our roster, though. Expect another mid-teens finish out of Austin Dillon this weekend. Not a great pick, but not a bad pick, either. He’s a pretty safe option. Another guy that will be a solid pick is Paul Menard, who has finished 14th or better in five of the last six Brickyard races–including that fuel mileage gamble win in 2011.

EDIT: We’re putting Carl Edwards on our roster instead of Greg Biffle. We’re just putting the #19 Toyota on there for potential qualifying points, we have no intention of starting him on Sunday.

Pre-Lockdown B Group Rankings: (1) Martin Truex, Jr., (2) Carl Edwards, (3) Tony Stewart, (4) Kyle Larson, (5) Ryan Newman, (6) Austin Dillon, (7) Kasey Kahne, (8) Paul Menard, (9) Jamie McMurray, (10) Greg Biffle, (11) Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., (12) Aric Almirola, (13) Trevor Bayne, (14) A.J. Allmendinger, (15) Danica Patrick, (16) Clint Bowyer, (17) Casey Mears

Yahoo! C Group Picks and Ranking for Indy

Unless we somehow get super lucky and Jeff Gordon is placed into the C Group this weekend (we’re assuming he’s going to race for Dale Earnhardt, Jr., but there’s nothing official), we think you have to go with the two rookies: Chase Elliott and Ryan Blaney. Those two have the very best equipment of everyone in the C Group, and that’s what it takes to run well here at Indianapolis. Our plan of attack for Indianapolis is to start Ryan Blaney, and for a few reasons: (1) he ran this race last season and came home 12th, (2) the #21 team seems to be at their best at the flat tracks, and (3) Chase Elliott is in a bit of a slump, so we’re going to wait for him to get out of his funk before unleashing him again. We still have 7 starts remaining with Blaney so we’re not too concerned about using one this weekend. If you’re really looking to start save, there aren’t many great options, but we’d say Regan Smith is the best–he finished 22nd at Pocono (another big track) and he ended up 18th and 3rd in his last two starts here at Indianapolis, although it should be noted that was back in 2012 and 2011 and he was racing with Furniture Row.

EDIT: It looks like Jeff Gordon is a C Group driver. We are taking off Chase Elliott and putting Jeff Gordon on our team.

Pre-Lockdown C Group Rankings: (1) Ryan Blaney, (2) Chase Elliott, (3) Jeff Gordon, (4) Regan Smith, (5) Michael McDowell, (6) Landon Cassill, (7) David Ragan, (8) Chris Buescher, (9) Matt DiBenedetto, (10) Brian Scott, the rest

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