It’s hard to believe that we’re this far in to the 2015 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season, but with the Coke Zero 400 on Sunday night, we’ve officially started making the “second round” at race tracks. This week is Daytona, and, as you probably know, handicapping a race at this venue is next to impossible. Anything can happen on Sunday night and we could easily see a surprising driver in victory lane. You know what that means…sleeper options for fantasy picks!
Fantasy Sleepers for Daytona 2
Casey Mears – For the second week in a row, Casey Mears makes my list for the top sleeper options. Last week at Sonoma, he ended up finishing 38th, but you can’t forget that this #13 Chevrolet was running inside the top 15 for most of the day until the axle issue. Now, if you’re surprised that Mears is on this list, I’m going to go ahead and assume that you haven’t been paying attention to the restrictor plate races over the last few years–or, if you have, it wasn’t very closely. Looking over the last six points-paying events here at Daytona International Speedway, the driver with the best average finish has been Dale Earnhardt, Jr. (with 7.2). No surprise there. Can you tell me who the second-best driver over that same span has been? Well, if you’re reading this, you have a pretty good idea…it’s Casey Mears! Believe it or not, Mears has scored more points than guys like Kevin Harvick, Jimmie Johnson, Matt Kenseth, etc. over the last six races at Daytona. Casey has averaged a finish of 12.7 and is currently on a four-race streak of top 10s. Mears is a lower-tier pick in fantasy leagues and would make a perfect pick on Sunday night in allocation games as well as salary cap contests.
Ryan Blaney – I’m really interested to see how this kid will do here at Daytona on Sunday night. We all know that the Wood Brothers put together pretty good race cars, and everyone always has at least one eye on the #21 Ford at restrictor plate tracks ever since Trevor Bayne got lucky and won the Daytona 500 in 2011. The main reason I am interested in how Ryan Blaney does here in the Coke Zero 400, though, is because of how well he has performed in his limited Sprint Cup action this season. In the season-opening Daytona 500, Blaney was running right around the top 10 at the time his engine gave up, and then back in May he started 3rd and finished 4th at Talladega. If he can stay out of trouble on Sunday night, it honestly wouldn’t surprise me to see this #21 Ford finish inside the top 10 once again, and that would be an incredible value finish in most fantasy racing leagues.
Austin Dillon – The picture to the right is Austin Dillon’s car during the race at Talladega Superspeedway earlier this year. Obviously fantasy owners didn’t get the best effort out of young Austin that day. Now I know that both Talladega and Daytona are similar race tracks, but there are quite a few differences among the two as well. Also, Austin has been pretty good here at Daytona over the last couple of years, and my motto when making picks at this race track is to go with the hot hand. In this year’s season-opening Daytona 500, Austin brought his #3 Chevrolet home in 14th, which is decent for his tier in fantasy games. Last year, through, he came home 9th in “The Great American Race” and brought it home 5th in the July event. I’d love to get another top 5 finish out of Dillon this weekend, and as far as sleepers, he’s the one that I have the most confidence in accomplishing that. There’s just something about the #3 car at Daytona…
