We have a quick turnaround this week, as the 2016 Federated Auto Parts 400 at Richmond International Raceway is on Saturday night after last weekend’s Darlington Southern 500 on Sunday night. There’s going to be a lot of discussion on the drama that could happen on Saturday night–due to the fact that this is the Chase cutoff race–but we just don’t really see that coming true. Currently, Chase Elliott (+24), Austin Dillon (+16), and Jamie McMurray (+7) are all good on points, while Ryan Newman is on the outside looking in. Chances are “The Rocketman” is going to get a points penalty for failing post-race inspection at Darlington, though, so that’s going to set him back even more. Any other driver that’s not in on points is going to have to get a win.
EDIT: Ryan Newman did receive the penalty (15 points) and will now probably need a win on Saturday night to make the Chase.
Yahoo! A Group Picks and Ranking for Richmond 2
Kevin Harvick (5 starts remaining) – Kevin Harvick is bringing his three-race streak of top 5 finishes to Richmond, a track that has been pretty good to him over his career. The #4 Chevrolet started on the pole in the race here back in April and ended up leading 63 laps en route to a solid 5th-place finish. That’s Harvick’s third top 5 here at Richmond over the last four races. His most recent win at this track came back in 2013, and that’s his third trip to victory lane at RIR (so far). We’re about to have Kevin Harvick on our roster quite a bit as we’re entering the Chase, and there’s really no reason not to. The #4 Chevrolet is ranked P1 on our overall rankings heading into the Federated Auto Parts 400 weekend, and it wouldn’t surprise us one bit if Harvick remains there after practice and qualifying, too.
Kyle Busch (4 starts remaining) – You really can’t go wrong with most of the A Group drivers this weekend, but we’re going to roll with Rowdy Busch (probably). The first five drivers we have ranked below all have definite top 5 potential heading into the race weekend, and it wouldn’t surprise us one bit if they all finished there on Saturday night, too. As far as Kyle Busch goes, he’s a four-time winner at Richmond International Raceway and has posted an incredible fifteen top 5 finishes in twenty-two career starts (68.2%). That kind of reliability on a short track like this is almost unheard of. The #18 Toyota has ended up 2nd in each of the last two races here at Richmond and almost went to victory lane here in April–if teammate Carl Edwards didn’t bump Rowdy out of the way. The only thing we don’t like about Kyle Busch this weekend is the fact that he hasn’t had a top 5 finish since his dominating win at Indianapolis back in July, so we might switch him out for someone else before locking down this weekend.
EDIT: We’re replacing Kyle Busch with Matt Kenseth this week.
Joey Logano has been very reliable here at Richmond as of late and six finishes of 8th or better in the last seven events. That #22 team got another top 5 finish at Darlington last week and should challenge for another one this weekend. Denny Hamlin remains on fire and now has an average finish of 4.7 over the last six Sprint Cup races overall. He’s a two-time winner here at Richmond and has finished 6th in the last two races at this track. Brad Keselowski won from the pole here back in 2014 but that’s one of just two top 5 finishes here in fourteen career starts (14.3%). He should be at least top 10 good this weekend, though. Matt Kenseth is our last viable A Group option this weekend, as he has finished 7th or better in seven of the last eight Richmond races. He’s also the defending winner of this race, and if his ownership percentage is low this week, we just might put him on our roster to try and be different.
Pre-Lockdown A Group Rankings: (1) Kevin Harvick, (2) Joey Logano, (3) Kyle Busch, (4) Denny Hamlin, (5) Brad Keselowski, (6) Matt Kenseth, (7) Jimmie Johnson, (8) Kurt Busch
Yahoo! B Group Picks and Ranking for Richmond 2
Jamie McMurray (6 starts remaining) – We have discussed our algorithm used to determine our early week rankings before, and the results of that this week actually had Jamie McMurray as the 6th-best driver for Richmond 2. Now obviously we don’t expect him to run that well here on Saturday night, but a solid top 10 isn’t out of the question for this team. Jamie Mac ended up 15th last week at Darlington thanks to that late penalty, but he was well on his way to a top 10 finish before that, and still has three results inside that mark over the last four Sprint Cup races overall. Here at Richmond, McMurray hasn’t finished worse than 16th in the last six events and has three top 5s during that span. He started 27th and finished 16th here back in April and should at least that good here this weekend. McMurray is a lock to make our roster this weekend.
Ryan Newman (4 starts remaining) – “The Rocketman” is fighting for his Chase life on Saturday night, which means he’s going to pull out all the tricks in the book to try and win this race. And honestly, it’s looking like that’s what he’s going to need to do after that penalty was announced this week. Newman is a previous winner here at Richmond (way back in 2003) and has posted five top 10s in his last ten starts here at RIR. Unfortunately, he didn’t end up inside that mark in either race here last season, and Newman finished 18th when we ran here back in April. However, this is a driver that rises to the occasion when he needs to, and because of that we think Newman might do a little better than anticipated this weekend. He’s going to be a risky start here on Saturday night, but you know what they say, high risk, high reward. Newman’s career average finish of 11.7 at this track is 4th-best among all active drivers.
Kasey Kahne (7 starts remaining) – Now is the time to go with Kasey Kahne before he calls it a season. This #5 team is going to need to somehow pull out a win here on Saturday night if they want to participate in this year’s playoffs, and while we really don’t see that happening, Kasey did get to victory lane here at Richmond way back in 2005. Momentum-wise, Kahne is currently as hot as we’ve seen him in a very long time, with four top 15 finishes in the last five Sprint Cup races overall, and that includes his top 10 run at Darlington last weekend–his first since Sonoma back in June. Kasey ran 4th here back in April and currently has back-to-back top 10s in the spring event at Richmond, although he’s capable of running well here in the summer as well.
Martin Truex, Jr. (4 starts remaining) – We’re throwing the most recent winner in the Sprint Cup Series on our roster this weekend as our backup plan. We’d honestly like to save our remaining Carl Edwards (3) and Kyle Larson (2) starts for the Chase–and, if possible, our 4 Truex starts. Here at Richmond, Truex has post four top 10 finishes in the last six events, but he hasn’t had a top 5 here since way back in 2008. That’s also his only finish inside that mark in twenty-one career starts here. With that being said, the #78 Toyota has actually been pretty strong here recently, but of course Truex has hit bad luck along the way. He needs to qualify well this weekend in order to be a viable option.
Carl Edwards is the best option in the B Group this weekend, but, as mentioned before, we’re down to 3 starts remaining with him, so we’re going to try to conserve those. He might still make our roster, though, in place of Truex. Edwards won here back in April and also went to victory lane in the 2013 summer race here at Richmond. Kyle Larson is on fire right now and if we had more than 2 starts left with him he would be on our roster. He’s never finished better than 11th at this track but he’s also never finished worse than 16th (in five career starts). Larson could definitely have another top 5 run on Saturday night, but it will be interesting to see how failing post-race inspection at Darlington affects this team. Sometimes it slows teams down a bit, for whatever reason. As we get to our drivers ranked 7th or worse in the B Group, we don’t have any of them ranked near the top 15 heading into the weekend. Austin Dillon‘s career-best finish here is 20th, but with the way that #3 team has been running lately, it wouldn’t surprise us to see him better that. Trevor Bayne posted a career-best finish of 17th here back in April and it wouldn’t be surprising to see him replicate that this weekend. If you’re looking for a sleeper, A.J. Allmendinger is your guy. He has three top 15 finishes in the last six Richmond races and usually qualifies pretty well here. As far as Tony Stewart goes, that #14 team had another bad run at Darlington and something is definitely up. Smoke hasn’t finished better than 15th at Richmond since the 2012 season and we’re honestly not even considering him this weekend.
Pre-Lockdown B Group Rankings: (1) Carl Edwards, (2) Martin Truex, Jr. (3) Kyle Larson, (4) Jamie McMurray, (5) Ryan Newman, (6) Kasey Kahne, (7) Austin Dillon, (8) Trevor Bayne, (9) Tony Stewart, (10) Greg Biffle, (11) A.J. Allmendinger, (12) Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., (13) Paul Menard, (14) Aric Almirola, (15) Danica Patrick, (16) Casey Mears, (17) Clint Bowyer
Yahoo! C Group Picks and Ranking for Richmond 2
Chase Elliott is going back to the driver we expected him to be in June and could challenge for his 14th top 10 finish of the season here at Richmond on Saturday night. He has finished 16th and 12th in his two career starts at this track. As far as Yahoo! goes, now it just comes down to when we should use those 3 remaining starts we have with him. He’s going to make our roster this weekend for sure. Also making our roster is Jeff Gordon (6 starts remaining), who rattled off another top 15 finish at Darlington last weekend. We were initially going to put Ryan Blaney (6 starts remaining) on our team for Richmond 2, but Jeff Gordon hasn’t finished worse than 11th in his last seven starts at this track. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. ran 5th in the #88 Chevrolet in this race last season, too, so the team should have some good notes for a baseline this weekend. Further than that, the only other possibly viable option is Chris Buescher this weekend, but that’s probably only if you’re completely out of Chase Elliott and Ryan Blaney starts. He should be top 20 at best on Saturday night.
Pre-Lockdown C Group Rankings: (1) Chase Elliott, (2) Jeff Gordon, (3) Ryan Blaney, (4) Chris Buescher, (5) David Ragan, (6) Landon Cassill, (7) Brian Scott, the rest
