The schedule at Pocono Raceway this weekend was a little weird. We had one practice session on Friday in which we had fog to deal with and then it rained to end it. We then got qualifying in later that day, and Brad Keselowski got the pole. And then on Saturday we had one single practice that was about an hour long. So really we only saw the cars in race-like conditions for an hour this weekend. So considering that Pocono races typically have a lot of strategy, and teams are going to have to tweak on these cars as much as possible during the race, this is a nice weekend to take some “off the wall” picks on your fantasy teams.

As far as this Fantasy Racing Online Yahoo! team goes, we’re starting to gain some momentum. We had 318 points at Charlotte last weekend, giving us our second straight 300+ point week to close out the Spring Segment. We’re back up to the 48th percentile among all teams. Remember, it’s a marathon, not a sprint.

Yahoo! A Group Pick and Final Rankings for Pocono

Well, that didn’t work out. We decided to avoid Joey Logano this week because the #22 team seems off to us, and he starts on the outside pole. He’s also been the best driver here at Pocono since it was repaved in 2011. Luckily, only 16.8% of the teams that are playing this game have Joey on their roster. As far as our two A Group choices this week, we went with Jimmie Johnson and Denny Hamlin, who will start 7th and 10th (respectively) for this weekend’s race. We think that both the #48 Chevrolet and the #11 Toyota are going to be solid top 10 cars, but we have to give the edge to Jimmie in this one. In Happy Hour, the six-time champion was 3rd-fastest on the speed chart and was one of the few cars that made a long run, ending up 5th in ten-lap average. Johnson finished 3rd and 6th in the two Pocono races last season and we’re hoping for something similar this time around. We’re using our second Jimmie Johnson start of the season this weekend at Pocono.

As far as the Penske Fords, we think they’re going to lead laps, but we don’t have them as solid top 5 finishers going into the race. Kyle Busch looks good but hasn’t posted a top 5 finish at Pocono since 2011 and has back-to-back mid-30s finishes. This is the perfect place for Dale Earnhardt, Jr. to break out of his slump, as he has five top 5s in the last six Pocono races and starts 8th this weekend. Kurt Busch should be a solid top 10 pick as usual, and Denny Hamlin and Matt Kenseth could end up anywhere from 5th to 12th, in our opinion.

Final A Group Rankings: (1) Kevin Harvick, (2) Jimmie Johnson, (3) Brad Keselowski, (4) Kyle Busch, (5) Joey Logano, (6) Dale Earnhardt, Jr., (7) Kurt Busch, (8) Denny Hamlin, (9) Matt Kenseth

Yahoo! B Group Picks and Final Rankings for Pocono

Qualifying was pretty much dominated by the A Group this weekend. Carl Edwards ended up 5th and Tony Stewart wound up in 6th, but the rest of the top 10 were all A Group drivers. That’s not overly concerning, though, because this is a track where we’re not going to see many B Group drivers up front at the end. If you put Tony Stewart on your team this weekend, go ahead and run him. Honestly, the only time when Smoke is even close to worth starting is when he qualifies up front, and that doesn’t happen often. The #14 Chevrolet was 13th on the Happy Hour speed chart on Saturday and ranked 4th in ten-lap average. The Stewart-Haas Racing cars are great at Pocono and Tony finished 9th here last fall after starting 5th.

Our team is in a position that probably a lot of others are in as well: not a lot to choose from. We have Kasey Kahne, Kyle Larson, Ryan Newman, and Jamie McMurray. We’ll go ahead and eliminate McMurray right off the bat because 1.) the #1 team has been regressing as of late, and 2.) Jamie qualified 26th. We’re also going to go ahead and choose one driver to start right off of the bat, and that’s Kasey Kahne. Yes, you heard–err, read–that correctly. As we have preached all week long, this is the race to take a chance, and that’s what we’re doing. Kahne starts 11th and has finished 13th or better in three of the last five Pocono races. He was just 20th on the speed chart in Happy Hour but if we can get a top 15 out of Kahne we’ll be happy.

So the choice comes down to Larson or Newman. We’re sitting with 6 Kyle Larson starts left and 7 with Ryan Newman. We think both of these drivers have top 15 potential, but Larson has a much higher upside. He has also never finished worse than 12th here at Pocono in four career starts. Newman finally got another top 10 finish at Charlotte last weekend and has posted seven top 10 finishes in the last ten Sprint Cup races here at Pocono–some of which were earned after starting mid-pack, like “The Rocketman” is this weekend (22nd). So right now we are leaning Kasey Kahne and Ryan Newman as our B Group starters, but we might switch it up to any combination of the three (Kahne, Newman, Larson) before the race.

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

Yahoo! C Group Pick and Final Rankings for Pocono

As we stated earlier this week, there are some viable start save options in the C Group for this race at Pocono. In fact, we didn’t put either of the rookies on our team for the Axalta “We Paint Winners” 400, instead opting for Ty Dillon in that #95 car along David Ragan. We were hoping the latter would have qualified a little higher than 34th, but that didn’t happen. Ragan is probably going to be a nice option in some other leagues this week, but we simply can’t start him over Ty Dillon this weekend. Yes, Dillon doesn’t have the best pit crew, and his equipment is somewhat questionable, but he’s one of those drivers that can just make laps on race day and end up finishing in the mid-20s. That’s all we’re hoping for, really. If there’s some wrecks, he might be able to squeeze into the top 20, and we’d be very happy with that. He ranked 28th in Happy Hour speed and we’re starting Ty Dillon in the C Group this weekend. Honestly, we wouldn’t waste a Blaney or Elliott start unless we had to.

Final C Group Rankings: (1) Ryan Blaney, (2) Chase Elliott, (3) Ty Dillon, (4) David Ragan, (5) Landon Cassill, (6) Brian Scott, (7) Regan Smith, (8) Chris Buescher, (9) Michael Annett, the rest

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Pocono Raceway is a very unique race track that, unfortunately, brings strategy into the equation more often than a lot of other tracks. Last year, it was honestly like watching a road course race, except Pocono is a 2.5-mile venue that the cars will hit 210+ mph going into turn one. So, because of how much strategy comes into play here, that means that the best cars don’t always finish up front. That also means that this is a great race to go with some “outside of the box” fantasy picks.

Yahoo! A Group Picks for Pocono

Kurt Busch (8 starts remaining) – We never thought we would say this but Kurt Busch might be the safest Fantasy NASCAR pick in the Sprint Cup garage right now. This #41 team has quietly posted seven straight top 10 finishes and owns the best average result over the last six races of anyone in the garage (5.8). Looking at his statistics here at Pocono, Kurt has led a handful of laps in four of the last five races here and has had a triple-digit driver rating in five of the last six. Finish-wise, Busch has posted three top 5s in his last five Pocono starts and has really been one of the better performers here since the repave in 2011. Sometimes it pays to go off-course and pick drivers that won’t be on many rosters, and that’s our strategy with this Kurt Busch pick.

Jimmie Johnson (8 starts remaining) – There’s a bunch of solid options this weekend in the A Group (see our paragraph below), but our initial gut reaction is to throw Jimmie Johnson on our roster. After all, we’ve only used the six-time champion once this year. Jimmie finished 3rd and 6th in the two Pocono races here last season and has ended up 7th or better in twelve of the last seventeen races at this track. He dominated the 2013 summer race here from the pole, which was one of three career victories for Johnson at this track. We may end up switching the #48 Chevrolet for someone else before lockdown but right now we have Johnson on our roster for Pocono.

EDIT: With news of Kurt Busch’s crew chief being suspended, we’ve replaced him with Denny Hamlin.

We wanted to put Dale Earnhardt, Jr. on our team this week, but we can’t look past the fact that the #88 team now has five straight finishes outside of the top 10. Still, if Junior is going to turn it around, Pocono is the place. He swept the races here in 2014 and has five top 5 finishes in the last six races here. Kevin Harvick should be top 5 contenders here on Sunday, and Brad Keselowski is a solid top 10 play. Denny Hamlin should qualify up front this weekend (as usual) but he has just one top 5 in the last seven Pocono races. Joey Logano has probably been the best driver here at Pocono since the repave but this #22 team just isn’t hitting on all cylinders right now.

Yahoo! B Group Picks for Pocono

Greg Biffle (8 starts remaining) – Believe it or not, Pocono is a pretty solid race track for Greg Biffle, so we’re going to use this opportunity to start save. In the last six races at “The Tricky Triangle,” Biffle has posted four top 10 finishes and no result worse than 16th. This #16 team had a great couple of weekends (for their standards) at Charlotte, and we’re hoping that that momentum carries on through to Pocono. If “The Biff” can finished 12th and 5th in the two races here last year when Roush-Fenway was running terribly, he just might be able to sneak out a legitimate top 10 finish this weekend. For the record, we thing the #16 Ford will be in the mid-teens in this weekend, but anything is possible.

Kyle Larson (6 starts remaining) – We’ve already used 3 Kyle Larson starts this year, but when it comes to Pocono, you almost have to put him on your roster. This is one of the best tracks on the circuit for Larson and this #42 team is starting to build some momentum. In four career starts at “The Tricky Triangle,” Kyle has never finished worse than 12th. He doesn’t necessarily run that well for the entire race–Larson has never had a driver rating above 100 here–but he gets the finishes and that’s all that matters. With that being said, Kyle does have the 10th-best average driver rating over the last four Pocono races (95.1) so at least he’s consistent.

Jamie McMurray (7 starts remaining) – Jamie Mac is a relatively safe pick at Pocono, and because of that he has the 5th-best average finish over the last two years here (9.8). He won’t be very flashy as the weekend goes on, but more often than not McMurray will be there at the end. He finished 7th and 15th in the two races here last season and hasn’t posted a result worse than 17th at “The Tricky Triangle” since the repave occurred. This #1 team had a pretty rough month of May when you take out their 4th-place finish at Talladega, and by rough we mean their 19th-place run at Charlotte last week was their next best result. Because of that, we may drop Jamie McMurray before lockdown this week, but right now he’s on our roster.

Ryan Newman (7 starts remaining) – Last season was a rough one for Ryan Newman at Pocono, as he finished 39th and 23rd in the two races here. However, in the first event, Newman was battling A.J. Allmendinger inside the top 10, but A.J. got loose and took them both out. In the fall race, Newman’s fuel gamble didn’t pay off and he ended up 23rd. Before those two races, though, Newman has nine straight finishes of 12th or better here at Pocono, and in the five races from 2012 to 2014 he never ended up worse than 8th. We’re hoping Newman can post another top 10 finish this weekend, as he grabbed his fourth of the season at Charlotte last week.

EDIT: Greg Biffle’s crew chief is also suspended for the Pocono race so we will be putting Kasey Kahne on our roster instead.

This is a great weekend to give Carl Edwards a break, who has just two top 10 finishes in the eight races here at Pocono since the repave. We would love to put Martin Truex, Jr. on our roster this weekend but we’re already down to 5 starts remaining with him. The only way we would start him is if he could dominate the race again, so we’re just hoping that doesn’t happen. With his 15th-place finish at Charlotte last weekend, Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. now has four straight finishes of 16th or better and has finished inside that mark in six of the last seven Sprint Cup races. He’s a nice start save option this weekend but his record here at Pocono isn’t as promising as we would like (two top 20s in six starts). Austin Dillon should have top 15 potential on Sunday, and you never know when Kasey Kahne is going to show up. He did win here back in 2013 and has finished 13th or better in three of the last five Pocono races.

Yahoo! C Group Picks for Pocono

We’re sticking with our start save strategy all the way through the C Group this weekend, and that starts with taking Landon Cassill. He ran the #40 Chevrolet in both Pocono races last season and ended up finishing 25th and 14th. That’s basically a win for a team like that. Another reason to like Cassill this weekend is because of how he’s performing lately; over the last six Sprint Cup races, Landon Cassill has an average finish of 22.9, which is just one finish spot worse than Paul Menard. Please note, the best you should hope for with Cassill is a mid-20s finish–anything better than that is a bonus. And if you’re really start saving this weekend, you need to be committed. Come Sunday, your brain will tell you to bench Cassill, but it might be the wrong move strategy-wise. We are pairing Cassill with David Ragan, who has been decent on the flat tracks this season (yes, Pocono is considered a flat track), and has actually performed pretty well here at “The Tricky Triangle” as of late. In the last four races here, Ragan hasn’t finished worse than 23rd, and two of those events he was in a Front Row Motorsports car. So, to save our valuable Chase Elliott and Ryan Blaney starts–who have never raced at this track–we’re going with Landon Cassill and David Ragan in the C Group for Pocono.

EDIT: It somehow slipped by that Ty Dillon is running this race in the #95 car. We’re going to pair him with David Ragan in the C Group for the Axalta “We Paint Winners” 400.

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