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Fantasy NASCAR Favorites: Las Vegas

By
Jordan McAbee
-
Carl Edwards in the garage fantasy NASCAR

Carl Edwards in the garage fantasy NASCARLast week’s race at Atlanta Motor Speedway backed up what we all thought after Daytona: the Hendrick cars have a definite advantage over the rest of the field. There’s no reason to think that that won’t change this weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in the Kobalt Tools 400. This is another 1.5-mile race track although it is different than Atlanta both in the banking as well as the frequency in which the favorites finish up front; don’t expect too many surprises inside the top 10 this Sunday. We may be in Sin City but a jackpot sleeper is few and far between at this race track.

Fantasy Favorites for Las Vegas

Carl Edwards – If Carl Edwards was able to post top 5 finishes here in lacking Roush Fenway equipment, imagine what he’ll be able to do in his Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota. Now I’m not saying Carl Edwards is going to go out there and dominate the race on Sunday, but he should definitely be a threat for a top 5 finish. Carl and Darian Grubb are still working out some kinks–and probably will for a while–but I think the driver’s talent will trump the limitations of the crew chief this weekend. Currently, Edwards is on a four-race streak of top 5 finishes here at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and is a two-time winner at this venue, with the most recent coming in 2011. He actually owns the best average finish of all Sprint Cup drivers here (9.2), just barely above Jimmie Johnson’s 9.23. The #19 Toyota will be on many fantasy rosters this weekend, and for good reason. Now hopefully he can get the finish us fantasy owners deserve. In The Showcase, Edwards will receive 3 handicap points for the Kobalt Tools 400. This lower amount is to be expected for a guy like Carl and is comparable to the amount Jimmie Johnson and Kevin Harvick are receiving as well.

Dale Earnhardt, Jr. – I went against my own advice last weekend and didn’t pick Junior in many Dale Earnhardt Jr out of carleagues, simply because I wasn’t so sure that him and his new crew chief had all the kinks worked out yet. Well, judging by the races at Daytona and Atlanta, this might be a better pairing than Dale and Steve Letarte last year, which means one thing: wins. The only thing I really know about Greg Ives is that he tends to be a perfectionist and that is exactly what Junior needs. They almost won their first race together last week and I think the #88 Chevrolet will once again be in the hunt this weekend at Las Vegas. Earnhardt has a career average finish of just 14.7 at this race track but has finished inside the top 10 more often than not (8 times in 15 tries). In fact, six of those have came in the last seven races–which is the exact number of events Junior has ran here while with Hendrick. The #88 was runner-up in the 2014 Las Vegas race, finishing 2nd to Brad Keselowski after leading 81 laps. In The Showcase, Dale Earnhardt, Jr. will receive zero handicap points on Sunday because of how well he has ran over the last six Sprint Cup races overall (5.8 average finish) as well as the last six races at this track (8.8). Because of the zero handicap points, I’d only put Junior on my roster if I think he has a legitimate shot to win on Sunday, which will probably end up happening.

Joey Logano – Yeah, pretty obvious, right? Oh, well. For most race tracks, Joey Logano has a disappointing average finish because of the years he struggled in the Cup Series while with Joe Gibbs Racing. However, his average here in Sin City is a respectable 12.3, and he posted a career-best finish of 4th here last season. When you add that with the fact that the #22 Ford has been one of the best in the field in 2015 thus far, you get a very solid fantasy pick. Joey Logano broke out as one of the best intermediate track drivers last season and, from what we saw last weekend, there’s no reason to think that that was a fluke. Also, I like to take into account momentum a lot more than normal when we’re this early in a season–for examples, see Martin Truex, Jr. and Jeff Gordon for this–and nobody has more than Joey Logano right now. In The Showcase, the driver of the #22 Ford will receive 1 handicap point this weekend, which is to be expected. We all know that Logano will probably qualify up front for the Kobalt Tools 400, and as long as he practices decently, he should finish up there as well. I have very few reasons not to pick Joey this weekend.

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Fantasy Sleepers and Busts for Las Vegas

By
Jordan McAbee
-
Photo Credit: Robert Laberge/NASCAR via Getty Images

3rd Annual Sprint Unlimited at Daytona - PracticeHistorically, Las Vegas has been one of the better races to begin the NASCAR season. Well, it can’t be any worse than the yawner we had last week, in my opinion. I hope a lot of people caught up on their sleep because they didn’t miss much. It seemed like the clean air out in front was the way to go, with not many passing the leader. Joey Logano never fell off quite like I thought he would, and Kyle Larson was pretty bad all day unlike I predicted. My picks aim to be better this week, so push your chips to the middle of the table and go all in at Sin City.

Sleeper Fantasy Picks for Las Vegas

Paul Menard – #27 Chevrolet

Does anybody know where Paul Menard finished last week at Atlanta besides his fantasy owners brave enough to start him? I think many were surprised with his 13th like I was. There was hardly anything mentioned about him all day. Las Vegas is another track that sets up well for Mr. Menard. He has 3 top 10 finishes here, including finishing 3rd last year. He will be on my Yahoo B team for sure, and, depending on his speed, most likely started. I will be interested to see how many handicap points the #27 Chevy will have in The Showcase, because if he is high it would be a steal for anyone.

Ryan Newman – #31 Chevrolet

Ryan Newman is a very under-rated fantasy NASCAR driver. He has been very consistent finisher over the past season, including a 10th-place finish last week. He has been upfront in Vegas when the checkered flag waved many times over the years. Newman had consecutive finishes in the top 5 in 2011 and 12. He was running in the top 15 for most of the race in 2013 before his engine gave out. Last year, he qualified 10th and brought the #31 home with a 7th place finish. I feel very good that Newman has at least a top 10 this week, and pushing towards the top 5.

Bust Fantasy Picks for Las Vegas

Jeff Gordon – #24 Chevrolet

Let me clarify my busts post. Am I saying that Newman and Menard are better choices every week than Jeff Gordon and Denny Hamlin? Absolutely not. My job is to identify who I do/dont think will run well at a particular track based on driver expectations. I could tell you that David Gilliland and Landon Cassill are busts, but who doesn’t know that already? Also, no one is looking to put those two on their teams unless extremely desperate from an allocation stand point on Yahoo!. When you are looking to roster Gordon, whether it be on the A group in Yahoo, The Showcase game on this site, or any other fantasy NASCAR game, you expect a top 5 or better. The stats show me that he is less likely to provide that result this week at Vegas. In 17 career races at the 1.5 mile tri-oval, the #24 Chevrolet has an average finish of 15th. His lone win came all the way back in 2001. The last four finishes here have been 36th, 12th, 25th, and a 9th place finish last year. Even though he is bound for a good finish this week after his first two terrible finishes this year, I will be leaving Jeff Gordon in the garage, and I recommend you do as well.

Denny Hamlin – #11 Toyota

The other driver I am fading this week is Mr. Denny Hamlin. On the surface, four finishes in the top 10 in 9 career races sounds attractive right? When I dove a little deeper into the numbers I saw reason for caution. The one that popped out to me the most like a clown in a jack-in-the-box was that he has only led 4 laps here in his career. Ouch. Hamlin’s average start of 21st could be a big cause of that and not being able to work his way up through the field here. The last stat that does him in for me here is in the last 6 races at Las Vegas the #11 has an average finish of almost 16. I hope you can find better choices this week, I know I will for sure.

 

There you have it folks, my sleeper and bust picks for Las Vegas have been made. Any questions/comments are welcomed. Once again remember: If these picks help your fantasy team on Sunday, you’re welcome. If not, you are the one who hits the submit button to lock in your fantasy teams, not me. Good luck to everyone who rolls the dice the weekend at Sin CIty and scores big. LET’S GET IT!!

Scott Boyle is a guest blogger at Fantasy Racing Online and an avid player in the fantasy NASCAR community.

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David Ragan Will Drive The #18 Until Kyle Busch Returns

By
Jordan McAbee
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david-ragan-thumbs-upJoe Gibbs Racing announced today that David Ragan will pilot the #18 Toyota for the time being while should-be driver Kyle Busch and his broken leg heal. Busch was injured in last week’s Xfinity Series race at Daytona International Speedway when he wrecked into an inside wall that didn’t have SAFER barriers. His timetable for return has not been determined, although rumors have been thrown out there that indicate it could be 4-6 months before Kyle gets back in his #18 Toyota.

David Ragan has been a full-time Sprint Cup driver since 2007. He raced for Roush Fenway Racing for most of his career before being let go at the conclusion of the 2011 season. Ragan then joined up with Front Row Motorsports, a lower-tier team in NASCAR. He’s a two-time winner in the Sprint Cup Series with 291 career starts under his belt (as of 02/24/2015). The chance to sub in for Kyle Busch in the #18 Toyota will be a major equipment upgrade for Ragan.

Fantasy Perspective

This announcement provides major relief for fantasy NASCAR players in allocation leagues, specifically Yahoo! Auto Racing. Ragan is a C-list driver in that game and he–along with Regan Smith–will now provide viable options in the lower tiers of allocation fantasy games. I would expect the #18 Toyota to fight for top 20 finishes on a week-to-week basis with maybe a top 15 sprinkled in there every once in a while. That equals great value not only in allocation leagues but as well as salary cap games when it comes to David Ragan and Regan Smith.

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Fantasy NASCAR Favorites: Atlanta

By
Jordan McAbee
-
Kevin Harvick in garage Fantasy NASCAR

Kevin Harvick in garage Fantasy NASCARThe Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 is this weekend and will provide fantasy racers with the first glimpse in 2015 of who’s going to be strong on the intermediate race tracks. Hendrick Motorsports showed off their horsepower at Daytona last weekend and I expect much of the same to happen in Atlanta this week. There are, however, some other drivers to pay attention to other than Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt, Jr., and Kasey Kahne. This is the first time the Sprint Cup Series will visit Atlanta Motor Speedway this early in a season since 2010. From 2011 – 2014, we only stopped here once, and that was in the fall.

Fantasy Favorites for Atlanta

Kevin Harvick – Well, this is the week that we’ll really get to see if Kevin Harvick and this #4 team can continue right where they left off in 2014. Yeah, he finished 2nd last weekend in The Great American Race, but luck plays a lot into restrictor plate track finishes. As far as here at Atlanta, Harvick wound up finishing 19th here last August, but I’m willing to bet he will end up better than that this Sunday in the Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500. Keep in mind that the #4 Chevrolet was probably the best car in the field in August–as was the case with many, many races last season. A late-race incident on a green-white-checkered restart relegated “The Closer” to a 19th-place finish in that event but he led 195 of the 335 laps from the pole in last fall’s race here and had a 2nd-place average running position over the whole race. Even with that disappointing finish, though, Kevin has six top 10s in the last eight Sprint Cup events at this venue. He does have one victory at Atlanta Motor Speedway but that was back in his rookie campaign (2001, when he moved up to Cup after the death of Dale Earnhardt). Harvick will no doubt be one of the favorites this weekend and will look to punch his ticket to this year’s Chase early on in 2015. In The Showcase, “Happy” has a handicap of 3 points this weekend, which is decent value when you considering how dominant his Chevrolet has the potential to be. I expect him to be one of the most-picked All Star Drivers on Sunday.

3rd Annual Sprint Unlimited at Daytona - PracticeJeff Gordon – Jeff Gordon and teammate Jimmie Johnson own the best average finishes here at Atlanta Motor Speedway, with each coming in under 12th. Jeff has made 41 career starts at this 1.54-mile race track and has visited victory lane five different times, the most recent in the September 2011 race. In the event here last year, the #24 Chevrolet was one of the few cars who could potentially keep up with Kevin Harvick, but Gordon got into the wall after blowing a tire in the middle part of the race. He ended up finishing 17th. What’s amazing, however, if that the #24 Chevrolet had the 4th-best driver rating in that race despite that wreck. Yeah, Gordon’s car was that good. Sunday will be a good test for the #24 team to see if they still have the rest of the field beat on the long runs–which I think we will have a lot of. Gordon has 11 top 10 finishes in the last 15 Sprint Cup events and should make it 12-for-16 this weekend. In The Showcase, the driver of the #24 Chevrolet will get 4 handicap points this week, which is great value when you consider his potential for a top 5 finish…or even a win. Expect Gordon to be on plenty Showcase teams this weekend.

Matt Kenseth – I fully expect Matt Kenseth to get back to 2013 form this year–when he won 7 times–and that will all start here at Atlanta on Sunday. Although he’s never won at this race track, Matt did finish runner-up to Kasey Kahne here back in August and hasn’t posted a result worse than 13th at Atlanta since the 2005 season. Yeah, talk about consistent. Looking at Charlotte, which is pretty comparable to Atlanta, Kenseth finished 3rd in the 2014 Coca-Cola 600–which is pretty good considering last season was somewhat of a “down year” for this #20 team. Look for Matt to rebound from a bad Daytona 500 and score a top 5–and possibly even a win–in this weekend’s Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500. In The Showcase, Matt Kenseth gets just 1 handicap point for Atlanta which may deter some people from picking him. Personally, I think there is more value in taking other drivers this week–especially as your All Star Driver–although if Kenseth has a car that can win the race, disregard that statement. Remember, in this game, the race winner gets 5 bonus points.

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Fantasy Sleepers and Busts for Atlanta

By
Jordan McAbee
-
NASCAR Kyle Larson and Martin Truex Jr at Charlotte
Photo Credit: Jonathan Moore/Getty Images
NASCAR Kyle Larson and Martin Truex Jr at CharlotteWeek 1 of the 36-race NASCAR schedule is in the books, with Joey Logano leaving his car in Daytona USA after his stunning Daytona 500 victory last Sunday afternoon. If you all fantasy players came away from the carnage that is Daytona and got a good score, great job! But if you are like me and employed Tony Stewart,Jeff Gordon, and Matt Kenseth to your squad, then there’s only one place to go this season, and that’s up.This week the Series heads a mere 6 hours north to Atlanta Motor Speedway for the Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500. This is much different than in years past because teams would normally be heading all the way west to Phoenix, Arizona. Atlanta is a 1,54 mile quad oval and is our first look at the intermediate track type that dominates the circuit. With this track being the fastest track of the intermediates, the ability to conserve tires and engines will be a major concern this weekend.

Last week I fell asleep on my very own sleeper picks, but I hope no one else did. I activated Austin Dillon on my team, and he spent many laps in the top 5 before settling for a 14th place finish. Casey Mears is where I got scared off from; he started in 41st and didn’t show that much speed throughout Speedweeks. His 6th-place finish in the Daytona 500 was what I was expecting when I wrote the sleeper article last week, but I just couldn’t start him. Shame on me. This week I expect both of my selections to score at least a top 10 finish and help all teams climb up their respective fantasy standings–or keep them there if already are.

Sleeper Fantasy Picks for Atlanta

Kyle Larson – #42 Chevrolet

Kyle Larson may be more a forgotten man after his poor Speedweeks and 34th-place finish in the 500. Repeat after me: “I will not forget Kyle Larson this week.” Good. In the aforementioned intermediate track type, Larson had the 8th best average finish in 2014, his rookie campaign. The tracks that are included in this type are: Atlanta, Auto Club (California), Charlotte, Chicagoland, Darlington, Dover, Homestead, Kansas, Kentucky, Las Vegas, Michigan, and Texas. These tracks make up one-third of the NASCAR schedule. This is also why I wrote about him being a sleeper for the Sprint Cup title in 2015. The #42 Target Chevrolet started 3rd and finished in 8th at Atlanta last year as well. I look for Kyle Larson–with more experience and a year more of maturity–to better than that 8th-place finish and score a top 5 or better when the checkered flag waves on Sunday afternoon.

Martin Truex, Jr. – #78 Chevrolet

I really like the consistency and momentum that Martin Truex, Jr. created during Speedweeks. He started off by showing a lot of speed in the Sprint Unlimited, where he finished 2nd and led the most laps (29). He followed that up by ending up 5th in the second Duel race, and finished off his great week by bringing the Front Row Furniture Chevrolet home in 8th place in the 500. When we take a look at Truex’s recent finishes at Atlanta, there’s a lot to like as well. Before his result of 23rd last year, his prior four finishes were: 12th, 14th, 4th, and 3rd. Some may say this may have more to do with the equipment he was in since those races were ran in the Michael Waltrip Racing’s #56 Napa Toyota. However, in the two races previous to Truex taking over the #78, the same car finished 14th (with Regan Smith at the wheel), and in 2013 it wound up 4th while being driven by Kurt Busch. The point is, this one-car team owned by Barney Visser puts a ton of money into this car and gets strong engines from Richard Childress Racing. I believe that from the recent momentum, track record, and resources, Martin Truex, Jr. will have a great shot for a top 10 Sunday at Atlanta. Keep him on your radar.

Bust Fantasy Picks for Atlanta

Clint Bowyer – #15 Toyota

I did select Clint Bowyer as a true sleeper to make noise heading into the 2015 NASCAR season. This week may be a different story, however. After wrecking in the Sprint Unlimited and at qualifying, Bowyer turned it around and finished 5th in his Duel and salvaged his weekend by avoiding the wrecks and finishing 7th in the Daytona 500. Just the early season momentum Bowyer spoke about he needed for right? Cue Homer Simpson… DOH! Atlanta’s not the track he wanted to see next to continue that precious momentum. In 14 career starts, he has zero top 5’s (none, nada, goose egg, zilch also applies) and only 5 top 10s. To make matters even worse, the #15 Toyota has finished 39th and 38th in back-to-back years. I had enough of mid 30s finishes on my team last week so he won’t come anywhere near any of my teams this week. I applaud anyone with the courage to do so.

Joey Logano – #22 Ford

Yes, the 2015 Daytona 500 winner. I may be standing in front of the momentum train here but I’m willing to take my chances. Besides Logano’s 2nd-place finish in 2013, he has zero top 10 finishes in seven starts at Atlanta. This makes his career average finish near his car number of 22. Another concern for me is the engine trouble his Penske teammate Brad Keselowski had last week at Daytona. Isolated issue? Sure the team will tell you that, but this track is very hard on engines also. My prediction for Joey Logano this week is: He qualifies in the top 10 or better because they have this qualifying format figured out, and then falls back to a mediocre finish in the mid teens or worse if there’s any mechanical failures. This will not get it done for anyone’s fantasy team this week no matter what format you play. My advice to everyone is to keep the #22 on the bench this Sunday.

 

There you have it, my likes and dislikes for our 2nd race race of the Sprint Cup season at Atlanta. Once again feel free to comment or ask questions. And also still remember: if you choose to use any of my advice and it works out for you, you’re welcome. That is what I’m here for after all. If sticking my neck out on these picks backfire, you hit the submit button on your team, I did not. Good luck to everyone, enjoy the race and LET’S GET IT!

Scott Boyle is a guest blogger at Fantasy Racing Online and an avid player in the fantasy NASCAR community.

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