The good news: we’re about to have NASCAR Cup Series racing back in our lives. The bad news: it’s about to get very interesting for Fantasy NASCAR players. When this weekend’s race at Darlington goes green on Sunday afternoon, that will be the first time the drivers get in their car. No practice, no qualifying, just sendin’ it. Will we see half the field pile up in turn one? Possibly. Does anybody really know what to expect on Sunday? Not really. I made some tweaks to the algorithm this week but the numbers still may look a little more spread out than usual, and that’s just because of the randomness.
There are quite a few statistics that go into the Power Index formula, including recent performance both overall and at Darlington 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.
The Real Heroes 400 Fantasy NASCAR Power Rankings
| Rank | Driver | Power Index |
| 1. | Harvick, Kevin | -49.2 |
| 2. | Busch, Kyle | -45.0 |
| 3. | Keselowski, Brad | -40.7 |
| 4. | Logano, Joey | -36.3 |
| 5. | Jones, Erik | -33.8 |
| 6. | Truex, Jr., Martin | -25.7 |
| 7. | Bowman, Alex | -20.3 |
| 8. | Elliott, Chase | -20.2 |
| 9. | Hamlin, Denny | -19.6 |
| 10. | Blaney, Ryan | -19.4 |
| 11. | Busch, Kurt | -18.3 |
| 12. | Johnson, Jimmie | -15.6 |
| 13. | Almirola, Aric | -12.3 |
| 14. | Byron, William | -10.9 |
| 15. | Dillon, Austin | -9.8 |
| 16. | Bowyer, Clint | -9.2 |
| 17. | Kenseth, Matt | -5.7 |
| 18. | Newman, Ryan | -5.5 |
| 19. | DiBenedetto, Matt | -2.8 |
| 20. | Buescher, Chris | 1.4 |
| 21. | Reddick, Tyler | 2.1 |
| 22. | Custer, Cole | 10.8 |
| 23. | Bell, Christopher | 13.2 |
| 24. | Stenhouse, Jr., Ricky | 15.4 |
| 25. | Dillon, Ty | 26.7 |
| 26. | Wallace, Bubba | 30.8 |
| 27. | Nemechek, John H | 31.3 |
| 28. | Suarez, Daniel | 37.9 |
| 29. | Preece, Ryan | 38.4 |
| 30. | McDowell, Michael | 40.7 |
| 31. | LaJoie, Corey | 45.2 |
| 32. | Poole, Brennan | 57.2 |
| 33. | Smithley, Garrett | 59.5 |
| 34. | Yeley, JJ | 60.2 |
| 35. | Houff, Quin | 62.3 |
| 36. | Sorenson, Reed | 66.8 |
| 37. | Gase, Joey | 69.7 |
| 38. | McLeod, BJ | 70.3 |
| 39. | Bilicki, Josh | 74.2 |
| 40. | Hill, Timmy | 78.9 |
