This week in NASCAR.com Fantasy Live it’s more important than ever to make sure you have the driver who leads the most laps on your roster. The STP 500 at Martinsville Speedway is scheduled to run 500 total laps, and although that only equals 250 miles of actual race, that also means there are 250 bonus points up for grabs for laps led as well as 250 bonus points for fastest laps. Therefore, we’re going to worry less about place differential this week than normal. We strongly believe that with these short track races, it’s often more advantageous to take someone who starts up front and risk the points lost if they wreck or something. And unless a driver really messes up in qualifying at Martinsville, the best fantasy choices usually qualify near the front. This weekend, however, we will see quite a few good drivers roll off the grid mid-pack, as a lot of unexpected cars qualified up front. The full STP 500 starting lineup can be seen by clicking here.
Last week at Fontana, our official Fantasy Racing Online team scored 290 total points, which gives us 1,340 total points through the first five races of the 2016 Sprint Cup season. We’re currently sitting in the 99.43th percentile in 1,319th place overall. Hopefully we can crack the top 1,000 after Martinsville on the march toward the top 50.
NASCAR.com Fantasy Live Picks for the Martinsville STP 500
Jimmie Johnson ($26.50) – Well that worked out exactly as planned. We locked in Jimmie Johnson at his $26.50 price point a few races ago with anticipation of his salary increasing gradually. We decided to keep him on the roster at Phoenix and Fontana (over Dale Earnhardt, Jr.) because of this race: Martinsville. Jimmie is an 8-time winner at the track they call “The Paperclip” and leads all active drivers with a 7.5 average finish over 28 career starts. Not too shabby. Now, the #48 Chevrolet hasn’t finished better than 12th at Martinsville since the spring race of 2014, but all drivers go through a rough patch every now and then. We’re not too worried about it to be honest with you. This #48 team has already got two wins under their belt in the first five races of 2016, and they’re more than capable of coming away with another great finish here in the STP 500 on Sunday. Johnson did qualify 24th for this weekend’s race, but we’re not too worried about it because that just says “place differential points” in our mind. Jimmie was 5th in ten-lap average during the morning practice session and ranked 1st on that chart in Happy Hour.
Joey Logano ($27.25) – Typically we really discourage picking the driver who wins the pole in a game like NASCAR.com Fantasy Live, but at a short track like this, the bonus points for laps led help mitigate that risk. We’re hoping Joey Logano can go out and dominate this race on Sunday, and it looks like the #22 Ford is good enough to do that. It was mentioned during Practice #2 that they are using the same setup that they had here in the fall, and if you remember back to that race, Logano led 207 laps and looked well on his way to his first Martinsville win until Kenseth dumped him. Joey led 108 laps and finished 3rd in last year’s spring race at “The Paperclip.” On Sunday, Logano will have that coveted #1 pit stall and as long as he doesn’t get wrecked, he should be a serious contender for the win.
Dale Earnhardt, Jr. ($27.00) – We had a hard time picking the third “high priced” driver we wanted to put on our roster this weekend but ultimately decided on Dale Earnhardt, Jr. It was between him, Denny Hamlin, and Martin Truex, Jr. Although Hamlin is probably the safest choice of the three, we chose Junior because of his starting spot: 21st. We’re going to try and capitalize on some more place differential points from the #88 team, just like we’ve done all season. Here at Martinsville, Junior has three top 5s in the last four events and he has started in the mid-20s in all three of them. This weekend, the #88 Chevrolet had great speed in Practice #2 (4th in ten-lap average) but slowed down a little bit in Happy Hour (12th in ten-lap average). Junior seemed to know what he wanted to change on the car when he was interviewed afterward, though, and this #88 team is great at making mid-race adjustments on their race car. Unless Denny Hamlin leads a bunch of laps on Sunday (which is definitely possible), Earnhardt should be the better choice in NASCAR.com Fantasy Live. We just wish we could afford Kyle Busch in this slot.
Matt DiBenedetto ($6.25) – We were going to throw Chris Buescher in here at $6.75 to hit the cap limit this week, but we feel like Matt DiBenedetto is the right low-price choice in NASCAR.com Fantasy Live this weekend. First let’s consider the fact that he finished 31st and 30th in his first two starts here at Martinsville last season, and then let’s focus on how this #83 team has been outperforming all year: to the tune of a 26.8 finish in the four races since the season-opening Daytona 500. Getting that kind of value for a guy like Matt DiBenedetto is what separates the men from the boys in this Fantasy NASCAR game.
Brian Vickers ($12.50) – We don’t particularly like putting Brian Vickers on our NASCAR.com Fantasy Live roster this week, but when you are extremely limited with your options, sometimes you have to bite the bullet. In order to afford the “big three” up above, we’re going to need a lower, mid-range driver to fill out the roster and make the math work. Pretty much the only other options we have are Casey Mears (which would be a nice sleeper pick) or Danica Patrick. So we’re going with Brian Vickers–probably, if we switch we’re going with Mears–because of one thing and one thing only: speed. The #14 Chevrolet has had great speed all weekend long, and it all started with Vickers qualifying 3rd on Friday–which is why it’s such a huge risk to pick him in this game. However, Brian had the best ten-lap average in Saturday morning’s practice session and was 4th in ten-lap average during the afternoon Happy Hour. We’re hoping the expected laps led points from Logano help offset the points we’re going to lose from Brian Vickers finishing worse than where he starts, although if he can pull off an 11th-place finish like he did in this race two years ago, we’ll be fine with that.
Race Winner: Joey Logano
Manufacturer: Ford
