Finally, we have a race without the threat of rain, as the forecast for tonight’s Quaker State 400 at Kentucky Speedway is nearly perfect. Fords pretty much dominated qualifying here on Friday, taking five of the top seven spots, with Stewart-Haas leading the way, as Daniel Suarez won the pole, Aric Almirola qualified 2nd, and Kevin Harvick ended up 5th. Please note that this is one of those impound races, so those qualifying results are not yet final. Any car that fails inspection on Saturday afternoon will cause that driver’s qualifying time to be disallowed and he will have to start from the back on Saturday night.
There are quite a few statistics that go into the Power Index formula, including recent performance both overall and at Kentucky specifically, similar track performance, projected strength of the car, practice speeds, starting position, and a few other variables.
Here’s a quick overview of the Power Index number: essentially, zero (0) is considered average; the more negative a number is in the Power Index, the stronger that driver is considered in the Fantasy NASCAR world. The opposite holds true as well: the more above zero a driver is, the worse he is considered for Fantasy NASCAR that week.
Quaker State 400 NASCAR Fantasy Power Rankings
| Rank | Driver | Power Index |
| 1. | Busch, Kyle | -53.5 |
| 2. | Harvick, Kevin | -49.4 |
| 3. | Truex, Jr., Martin | -48.3 |
| 4. | Logano, Joey | -44.7 |
| 5. | Busch, Kurt | -40.4 |
| 6. | Keselowski, Brad | -38.9 |
| 7. | Almirola, Aric | -35.0 |
| 8. | Johnson, Jimmie | -31.1 |
| 9. | Hamlin, Denny | -28.0 |
| 10. | Elliott, Chase | -27.9 |
| 11. | Jones, Erik | -26.4 |
| 12. | Byron, William | -24.1 |
| 13. | Bowman, Alex | -19.3 |
| 14. | Stenhouse, Jr., Ricky | -18.3 |
| 15. | Suarez, Daniel | -17.0 |
| 16. | Bowyer, Clint | -11.5 |
| 17. | Newman, Ryan | -8.6 |
| 18. | Larson, Kyle | -7.0 |
| 19. | Blaney, Ryan | -5.2 |
| 20. | Buescher, Chris | -5.1 |
| 21. | Menard, Paul | -1.1 |
| 22. | Hemric, Daniel | 11.8 |
| 23. | Dillon, Austin | 15.7 |
| 24. | Wallace, Bubba | 35.5 |
| 25. | Ragan, David | 37.1 |
| 26. | McDowell, Michael | 39.7 |
| 27. | DiBenedetto, Matt | 49.1 |
| 28. | LaJoie, Corey | 50.2 |
| 29. | Tifft, Matt | 51.9 |
| 30. | Dillon, Ty | 52.4 |
| 31. | Preece, Ryan | 55.5 |
| 32. | Chastain, Ross | 74.2 |
| 33. | Cassill, Landon | 80.6 |
| 34. | Currey, Bayley | 84.9 |
| 35. | McLeod, BJ | 88.2 |
| 36. | Houff, Quin | 93.1 |
