If qualifying and practice are any indication this weekend, it looks like we’re going to have another Chaser punch their ticket to the Round of 8 on Sunday. The question now is: who will it be? The Gibbs Toyotas (and Martin Truex, Jr.) have to be the favorite heading into race day, especially considering they swept the top four spots in qualifying on Friday, but Kevin Harvick has a fast race car, too, and let’s not forget about Chase Elliott in that Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet. We expect to see quite a few lap leaders during the Hollywood Casino 400 and no real dominator. The driver who commits no mistakes and has track position late will probably be the one in victory lane.
Yahoo! A Group Pick and Final Rankings for Kansas 2
We ended up with Matt Kenseth and Kyle Busch as our two A Group drivers for Kansas, which is a good thing because they qualified 1-2 for Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400 and earned us those qualifying bonus points. As far as which one to start for the race, we really don’t think you can go wrong with either. We have both the #20 and #18 Toyotas as potential race winners this weekend, and they should both be able to lead quite a few laps on Sunday. Right now our gut says that Kyle Busch is going to win this race, so he’s going to be our starter in the A Group. He’s currently on a three-race streak of top 5 finishes here and went to victory lane for the first time here back in May.
Kevin Harvick needs a win if he wants to rest easy through Talladega, and he has a car that can do it this weekend. He starts back in 11th but had the best ten-lap average in Happy Hour. He should be a threat on Sunday as well. Another guy that starts further back is Jimmie Johnson, who qualified 21st. You can’t count out that #48 team, though, especially considering how fast they have been on the intermediates lately. Johnson has three career wins here at Kansas. The Penske drivers of Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano didn’t show a lot of speed during the practice sessions on Saturday but should be good to go (as usual) on Sunday. Logano is another one of those drivers that needs a good run, as does Denny Hamlin. All of the Gibbs Toyotas have speed this weekend and Hamlin won here at Kansas back in 2012–although that was before the repave.
Final A Group Rankings: (1) Kyle Busch, (2) Matt Kenseth, (3) Kevin Harvick, (4) Jimmie Johnson, (5) Brad Keselowski, (6) Joey Logano, (7) Denny Hamlin, (8) Kurt Busch
Yahoo! B Group Picks and Final Rankings for Kansas 2
We got lucky and swept the top 4 qualifying spots this weekend thanks to Carl Edwards and Martin Truex, Jr. The easy route here would be to start both of those guys and move on to Talladega, but it’s not really that easy. From a strategy perspective, we view Carl Edwards as a must-start this weekend because we have three starts left with him. He’s also shown more speed here at Kansas than he has over the last month or two in Sprint Cup action, and the 3rd-place starting spot helps, too. Don’t forget this is Edwards’ home track and he has finished 8th or better in four of the last six races here.
As far as Truex, the #78 team was off last week at Charlotte, and hasn’t shown that “guaranteed top 5 finish” speed here at Kansas this weekend, either. We’re down to two starts left with Martin, and considering he got through Charlotte unscathed, we’re assuming he’s going to race Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400 very conservatively, and that could be disappointing for a lot of fantasy owners. There’s two or three tracks coming up that Truex is probably going to be the best option at, so we’re going to let him sit the bench at Kansas on Sunday and hope he doesn’t have the best car here for the second race in a row.
So now, for us, it comes down to either Austin Dillon or Kasey Kahne in the second B Group spot. Both of these drivers have top 10 potential on Sunday, while Kahne has the momentum edge and Dillon has the “Chase Effect” edge. Here at Kansas back in May, the #3 Chevrolet finished 6th while the #5 Chevrolet came home 16th. We expect both of these drivers to finish somewhere in the average of those two spots, but we’re going to give the edge to the #3 due to better starting position on Sunday. Therefore, our two starting B Group drivers will be Carl Edwards and Austin Dillon for Kansas 2, but we still might swap out Dillon for Kahne.
Kyle Larson has a fast car once again this weekend but he starts back in 24th on Sunday and has just one finish better than 12th in five career starts here at Kansas. He has a car to get a top 10 this weekend–and he probably will accomplish that–but it’d be hard for us to start him even if he was on our roster. Tony Stewart really likes his car this weekend and showed more speed during the two practice sessions on Saturday than we’ve seen out of the #14 Chevrolet probably all year. He’s a two-time winner at Kansas and finished 12th here back in May. Ryan Newman is another possible option if you need one, as he hasn’t finished worse than 11th here at Kansas since the 2013 season, and don’t forget he’s coming off of that top 5 run at Charlotte last week. Speed-wise the #31 Chevrolet is probably just a top 5 contender this week, though. Jamie McMurray is another one of those drivers that didn’t qualify well on Friday, but the #1 Chevrolet showed top 10 speed in both practice sessions on Saturday. With that being said, McMurray has just one top 10 finish in the eight races here since the track was repaved, so there’s quite a bit of risk in starting him on Sunday.
Final B Group Rankings: (1) Martin Truex, Jr., (2) Carl Edwards, (3) Kyle Larson, (4) Kasey Kahne, (5) Austin Dillon, (6) Tony Stewart, (7) Ryan Newman, (8) Jamie McMurray, (9) Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., (10) A.J. Allmendinger, (11) Danica Patrick, (12) Trevor Bayne, (13) Paul Menard, (14) Greg Biffle, (15) Clint Bowyer, (16) Aric Almirola, (17) Casey Mears
Yahoo! C Group Pick and Final Rankings for Kansas 2
Chase Elliott is the top C Group driver this week (as usual) and could contend for a top 5 finish–and possibly a win–if he can avoid any and all wrecks and limit the mistakes during the race. He wound up 9th when we raced here back in May and should be at least that good this time around as well. Ryan Blaney is the 2nd-best option in this group and is also going to be the guy that we start on Sunday. We’re down to just one start remaining with Chase Elliott and we still have five left with Blaney so we’re going to burn one of those this weekend. The latter has finished 5th and 7th in the last two Kansas races, and while we don’t see that happening this weekend, a 12th-place finish (or so) wouldn’t be too crazy for this #21 team. Alex Bowman is the only other viable option in the C Group this weekend, as he had another top 5 qualifying effort on Friday. With the number of mechanical issues that that #88 team has with Bowman behind the wheel, though, it’s hard to trust him even a tiny bit on your Fantasy NASCAR rosters.
Final C Group Rankings: (1) Chase Elliott, (2) Ryan Blaney, (3) Alex Bowman, (4) Chris Buescher, (5) Regan Smith, (6) David Ragan, (7) Landon Cassill, (8) Matt DiBenedetto, the rest
