We’re back at Pocono Raceway this weekend for the 21st race of the season, and the second time we’ve stopping at one particular track twice (with the first being Daytona). In this year’s first race at “The Tricky Triangle,” it was–surprise, surprise–Kyle Busch who ended up in victory lane after leading 79 of the 160 laps and accomplishing a driver rating of 147.6. Kyle Larson also led 35 laps that day, with pole sitter William Byron leading 25. Daniel Suarez added 9 laps led with Brad Keselowski leading 4, Daniel Hemric leading 3, Chase Elliott and Clint Bowyer leading 2, and Denny Hamlin rounding out the lap leaders with 1 lap led in June.
Like last week at New Hampshire, Pocono is technically considered a short track on the NASCAR schedule, but it’s a big one, at 2.5 miles in length. The most comparable track to Pocono would be Indianapolis.
There are quite a few statistics that go into the Power Index formula, including recent performance both overall and at Pocono 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.
Pocono 2 Gander RV 400 NASCAR Fantasy Power Rankings
| Rank | Driver | Power Index |
| 1. | Busch, Kyle | -59.8 |
| 2. | Harvick, Kevin | -46.9 |
| 3. | Jones, Erik | -44.3 |
| 4. | Busch, Kurt | -39.8 |
| 5. | Truex, Jr., Martin | -38.2 |
| 6. | Hamlin, Denny | -32.7 |
| 7. | Suarez, Daniel | -27.1 |
| 8. | Keselowski, Brad | -26.5 |
| 9. | Logano, Joey | -24.8 |
| 10. | Bowman, Alex | -22.0 |
| 11. | Byron, William | -16.2 |
| 12. | Newman, Ryan | -15.7 |
| 13. | Blaney, Ryan | -11.9 |
| 14. | Almirola, Aric | -7.8 |
| 15. | Elliott, Chase | -6.3 |
| 16. | Bowyer, Clint | -5.7 |
| 17. | Johnson, Jimmie | -4.5 |
| 18. | Larson, Kyle | -3.0 |
| 19. | Hemric, Daniel | 3.1 |
| 20. | Menard, Paul | 4.3 |
| 21. | Buescher, Chris | 5.8 |
| 22. | Dillon, Austin | 7.9 |
| 23. | Stenhouse, Jr., Ricky | 9.9 |
| 24. | McDowell, Michael | 11.9 |
| 25. | DiBenedetto, Matt | 14.9 |
| 26. | Preece, Ryan | 27.8 |
| 27. | Dillon, Ty | 31.2 |
| 28. | Ragan, David | 39.8 |
| 29. | Wallace, Bubba | 47.1 |
| 30. | Tifft, Matt | 57.9 |
| 31. | LaJoie, Corey | 63.9 |
| 32. | Cassill, Landon | 69.8 |
| 33. | Chastain, Ross | 71.7 |
| 34. | McLeod, BJ | 74.6 |
| 35. | Bilicki, Josh | 77.9 |
| 36. | Houff, Quin | 80.2 |
| 37. | Sorenson, Reed | 82.6 |
| 38. | Theriault, Austin | 89.0 |
