We don’t know about you, but we’re ready for Richmond. We think that the races here are some of the best we’ll see all season, and after that rough fantasy day at Bristol last Sunday, we need a good race. Hopefully this week we’ll have a little better luck–although it’s probably not very likely that we’ll be much worse! The good news is that the race this week is another one that we should see some sleepers creep up near the front, which should be music to people’s ears who are in major “start save” mode for Yahoo! right now.

Richmond International Raceway is a 3/4-mile D-shaped race track that is technically a short track but races like an intermediate venue.

Yahoo! A Group Picks for Richmond

Joey Logano (8 starts remaining) – Joey Logano has had a very up and down season when you look strictly at his finishes. In the odd weeks–such as #1-Daytona, #3-Las Vegas, etc.–he has finished 6th, 2nd, 4th, and 3rd. In the even weeks, he has ended up 12th, 18th, 11th, and 10th. Well, this weekend’s Toyota Owners 400 at Richmond is week #9 of the Sprint Cup season, so if Joey is going to continue this streak (or whatever you want to call it), he’s due for another single digit run. Also, he’s pretty darn good at this venue; Logano started on the pole for both Richmond races last season and has finished 6th or better in five of his last six starts here–and that includes his win here in the spring 2014 race. Start saving isn’t that big of a deal in this group, in our opinion, and we have Logano ranked 3rd among the A Drivers so we’re going to go ahead and use him.

Kyle Busch (7 starts remaining) – We’re starting to think that we have create a curse when starting Kyle Busch. We have used him twice for our Yahoo! team this year: at Fontana, where he blew a tire while running 2nd, and last week at Bristol when he was the hands-down favorite to win. Oh, well, that happens. We’re focusing on Richmond now. Rowdy is a four-time winner at this race track and owns the best career average finish here (7.1) by a large margin (Denny Hamlin is 2nd with 10.8). One of the reasons that Kyle Busch has such a good record here is because his worst result at this track is 24th. There aren’t many drivers in the Sprint Cup Series that can say that at any track. Rowdy missed this spring race last year due to his leg injuries but he finished 2nd in the fall race here at Richmond and ran 3rd in the spring 2014 race. The #18 Toyota will be a contender here on Sunday.

For those looking for other A Group options, Kevin Harvick and Jimmie Johnson should be top 5 threats on Sunday, and we really like Kurt Busch as a start save option. There’s really not a bad A Group pick this week, although it’s understandable if you want to stay away from Matt Kenseth. He did win the fall race here last season, though.

Yahoo! B Group Picks for Richmond

A.J. Allmendinger (8 starts remaining) – We started Allmendinger back at Martinsville when he had that great 2nd-place run, and now we’re hoping to catch lightening in the bottle twice. This #47 team is actually having a very nice start to their 2016 season with an average finish of 16.3 over the first eight races. Now we’re at Richmond for race #9, and if you look at the last few spring races at this track, you’ll notice that Allmendinger has finished 13th, 6th, and 14th. Not too shabby for a guy like A.J. Another reason we like The Dinger is because of a system we use here at Fantasy Racing Online for our full-season Fantasy NASCAR game, The Showcase. We’re not going to give out the formula, but essentially we take the average finish of all drivers in the last six races overall, as well as the last six races at the track we are at that week, compare it to a baseline, and then drivers are ranked and given a handicap point level bases on that. This week, Allmendinger comes in at 11th-best on that list and 4th among B Group drivers. As far as a start-save option, A.J. is your best choice this week.

Kyle Larson (9 starts remaining) – We really like how this #42 team is performing on the shorter tracks this season. Larson had that near-win at Martinsville earlier this year and looked to be a solid top 5 (at least top 10) car at Bristol if it wasn’t for the mechanical issues that ended his day. Those are something you can’t predict, and we’re not going to start trying, either. Anyway, looking at Richmond, the fast way around this track is right there at the bottom, and we all know that Larson loves to rim ride. However, he’s had consistent success at this track since joining NASCAR’s top series, with no finish worse than 16th in his four career starts thus far. Larson finished 12th in both races here at RIR last season and we see no reason why he wouldn’t be able to replicate that here on Sunday.

Jamie McMurray (8 starts remaining) – Jamie Mac isn’t the flashiest Fantasy NASCAR pick, but he consistently gets the finish, and that’s what we’re looking for this week. Over the last six Sprint Cup races, McMurray has just one finish worse than 16th, and that was his 23rd-place run at Martinsville. Here at Richmond, McMurray hasn’t ended up worse than 13th in any of the last five races, and he finished 4th in this event one year ago. He also came home 4th in the fall 2014 race as well as the fall 2013 race. If you’re like us and haven’t used Jamie Mac very much this season, Richmond is an excellent place to put him on your roster as a start save option. Over the last four races here, only six drivers have a better average driver rating than McMurray, so you know his finishes aren’t flukes.

Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. (9 starts remaining) – Since the beginning of the season, we’ve probably had Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. as one of our top sleeper picks in about half of the races, but we have yet to pull the trigger on him in most games–especially Yahoo!. This week, once again, we’re going to be keeping an eye on this #17 Ford. Stenhouse finished 16th in the fall race here at Richmond last September, which was right about the time that Roush-Fenway Racing was starting to turn things around. He finished 16th at Bristol last week (despite starting 32nd) and that makes it five finishes of 16th or better in the last seven Sprint Cup races for him. Stenhouse really excelled on this type of track in the Xfinity Series, too.

Obviously we’re going in full “start save” mode this week, although we might throw Carl Edwards on our roster. Honestly, with as fast as that #19 Toyota has been lately, he just might go out and dominate the race here this weekend as well. Carl won the fall race here at Richmond in 2013. We’re not a big fan of Martin Truex, Jr. this weekend. He should have a top 10 car but we want top 5s if we’re going to use him. Austin Dillon has never finished better than 20th here at Richmond and has come back down to earth over the last month, so we’re going to leave him off our roster this week. Other B Group drivers we like at Richmond are Ryan Newman and Kasey Kahne, with Aric Almirola as a deeper sleeper pick.

Yahoo! C Group Picks for Richmond

EDIT 04/21/16: It was announced on Thursday that Tony Stewart will be returning this weekend at Richmond. We will be going with Chase Elliott and Ryan Blaney in the C Group this weekend.

Chase Elliott and Ryan Blaney are definitely the best choices in the C Group this weekend (as usual), but we’re remaining in ultra start save mode with this group of drivers, so one of the roster spots for this group is dedicated to the driver of the #14 Chevrolet. Stewart-Haas Racing announced on Monday that Brian Vickers will be piloting that race car this weekend, and as long as he doesn’t pull his patented “hit the wall” move halfway through the race, he should be a decent pick. Vickers didn’t race here at Richmond last season, but during 2014–when he was still with Michael Waltrip Racing–he ended up 12th and 13th in the two events at this track. As far as our second C Group driver, we’re going with Chase Elliott, who is fresh off of his top 5 run at Bristol. Also, Elliott ran the #25 Chevrolet in this race here at Richmond last season and came home 16th. So, our C Group picks: Brian Vickers and Chase Elliott. We have six and eight starts remaining, respectively.

Enjoy the FREE Fantasy NASCAR content we have here at Fantasy Racing Online? If you’d like to buy us a coffee, you can by clicking here.

It’s Bristol, Baby! The Food City 500 on Sunday afternoon will be the second short track race of the season for the Sprint Cup Series, and if this one ends up anything like Martinsville did,we might see some surprise faces up front. The thing about Bristol is that it’s very hard to consistently post good finishes here: one mistake on pit road can find you multiple laps down, and let’s not even talk about if you are involved in a wreck or something. Track position will be pivotal here on Sunday, so common sense says that the drivers starting up front should be the safest options this week.

Our Fantasy Racing Online team had another rough week at Texas last Saturday night, thanks to Brian Vickers and Greg Biffle both wrecking out. Our team is on this off-on streak in Yahoo!, as we have had been alternating near-200-point weeks with 300-plus-point weeks. Hopefully that trend stays true and we can score a bunch of points this weekend, and then focus on breaking out of this early season slump at Richmond next weekend.

Yahoo! A Group Pick and Final Rankings for Bristol

Our Fantasy Racing Online team went with Kyle Busch and Joey Logano for this year’s Food City 500, and really the only reason we put the latter on there was because we thought he had the opportunity for some qualifying bonus points (thanks for the 3, Joey). It’s really been our intention to start Kyle Busch all week, and the only way that was going to change was if our other A Group driver looked like he could dominate the race on Sunday. We just don’t see Joey Logano doing that. Kyle Busch is a five-timmer winner here at Bristol (in the Cup Series) and led 192 laps in the fall race here last season. He starts 5th on Sunday and had the best car in the morning practice session on Saturday. In Happy Hour, Rowdy was 2nd in ten-lap average behind Kyle Larson. We’re starting Kyle Busch on Sunday.

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

Yahoo! B Group Picks and Final Rankings for Bristol

Well, Carl Edwards got the pole again this week, and for those of you who rostered him, we know it’s going to be hard to sit him. As we said last week, this #19 team is right on the edge of getting to victory lane, and getting the pole here at Bristol is a pretty big advantage. If you have eight or more Carl Edwards starts left, we think you have to roll with him this week. Six or less, we’d recommend keeping him on the bench. And if you’re sitting at that magical seven starts left, only start him if you think he can win. As far as Austin Dillon, we think he should be top 15 this week but this is another great opportunity to keep him on the bench and save your starts for the intermediate tracks. As far as our Fantasy Racing Online team, we don’t have either Edwards or Austin Dillon, and we kept Martin Truex, Jr. off this week as well.

Our choices, if you remember back to our earlier weekly Yahoo post, are: Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. (starts 32nd), Paul Menard (starts 14th), Ryan Newman (starts 17th), and Kyle Larson (starts 25th). We really planned on using Stenhouse this weekend, but that qualifying effort is concerning. We think he’s going to be a great pick in leagues that award points for place differential, but unfortunately, that’s not how Yahoo! is set up. The safest options we have are the RCR teammates of Paul Menard and Ryan Newman.

As far as Practice #2 on Saturday morning, Newman looked the fastest of our B Group drivers, and Stenhouse didn’t look to terrible either. Menard had the 7th-best ten-lap average in that session. In Happy Hour, Larson looked the most impressive of those three with the best ten-lap average of all drivers. Newman hasn’t finished worse than 13th in the last three races here at Bristol and came home 10th at Martinsville a couple of weeks ago (yes, a different track entirely, but still a short track). Menard finished 8th in that Martinsville race and has finished 11th or better in four of the last six races here at Bristol. So while we would like to use Stenhouse this week, we’re going to go the safe route here in Yahoo! and roll with Ryan Newman and Paul Menard for our B Group drivers this weekend. Although we do think Larson could surprise some people on Sunday, and we might make a last minute switch with him.

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

Yahoo! C Group Pick and Final Rankings for Bristol

The two C Group drivers we have to choose from this week are Chase Elliott and Ty Dillon. The former qualified 19th while the latter will roll off the grid 34th. This gives a major advantage to Chase Elliott. Also, the #14 Chevrolet hasn’t really shown anything all weekend. Ty was 31st-fastest in Practice #2 on Saturday morning and then was just 26th on the Happy Hour speed chart. Meanwhile, Elliott was 2nd to Kyle Busch’s fastest lap in the first Saturday session and was 2nd-fastest in Happy Hour as well. Head-to-head, the clear choice between these two is Chase, but we have to take into account the whole start saving situation in the Yahoo! Auto Racing game. Therefore, we’re going to start Ty Dillon on Sunday afternoon and hope for the best. If he can stay on the lead lap early, he should be able to contend for a mid-to-high 20s finish.

Final C Group Rankings: (1) Chase Elliott, (2) Ryan Blaney, (3) David Ragan, (4) Ty Dillon, (5) Chis Buescher, (6) Brian Scott, (7) Landon Cassill, (8) Matt DiBenedetto, the rest

Enjoy the FREE Fantasy NASCAR content we have here at Fantasy Racing Online? If you’d like to buy us a coffee, you can by clicking here.