This week we’re at Texas Motor Speedway for the Duck Commander 500. This is a 1.5-mile race track that is going to be slick on Saturday night. Although they are two different race tracks, Texas is somewhat comparable to Atlanta Motor Speedway, which is where we raced back in late February. Although typically we don’t care a lot about starting position at these cookie cutter tracks, it should be noted that in the two races here at Texas in 2015, it kind of mattered. In this race one year ago, seven of the top eight finishers started 12th or better, and in the fall race none of the top seven finishers started worse than 13th. So we should keep that in mind this weekend. This is a 500 mile race which means we’re going to make 334 laps on Saturday, equating to 167 bonus points available for laps led and fastest laps. Carl Edwards won the pole for this year’s Duck Commander 500 and the full starting lineup can be found here.
Last week at Martinsville, our Fantasy Racing Online team really missed the boat by going “all in” on Joey Logano. We’re still kind of baffled on how bad the #22 Ford was at “The Paperclip,” and it didn’t help that Dale Earnhardt, Jr. and Jimmie Johnson also had worse-than-expected runs. You’re going to have off-weeks in a 36-race season, but having those at a race like Martinsville is especially frustrating. We’ll move on, though, and try to make up some spots this week. Our team is now in 11,096th place (95.27 percentile) with 1,489 points.
NASCAR.com Fantasy Live Picks for the Texas Duck Commander 500
Kevin Harvick ($27.75) – Yeah, he’s pretty pricey, but the ‘investment’ in Kevin Harvick should pay off big time this weekend. The #4 Chevrolet will roll off the grid in 22nd for Saturday night’s Duck Commander 500 but Harvick should be challenging for the win before it’s all said and done. He has been close to winning here at Texas Motor Speedway lately but has yet to close the deal. It’s only a matter of time, though. In this race one year ago, Harvick finished runner-up to Jimmie Johnson, and in the fall race he ended up 3rd. The #4 Chevrolet also led for over 100 laps combined in those two races. That makes it three finishes of 3rd or better for “Happy” Harvick at this track, although he also started inside the top 5 in those races. Still, the #4 Chevrolet has a bunch of speed this weekend, as evidenced by Harvick’s 4th-place ranking in ten-lap average during Happy Hour. We’re looking forward to earning a bunch of place differential points with Harvick on Saturday night.
Jimmie Johnson ($26.50) – We still have Jimmie Johnson locked in at this $26.50 price point and we’re not going to let that go. Yeah, it’s only a 50 cents difference from his current price, but that can be big in this game. Plus, Jimmie should be an excellent pick in NASCAR.com Fantasy Live. He has won five of the last seven races here at Texas Motor Speedway and also won the race at Atlanta earlier this year, which is somewhat similar to TMS. Additionally, Johnson will start Saturday night’s Duck Commander 500 from 11th place, so there’s some room for place differential points as well.
Carl Edwards ($27.00) – This is one driver that we might change on this roster before locking in for the Duck Commander 500, but our gut tells us that Carl Edwards is going to challenge for the win here on Saturday night. Yeah, he starts from the pole, so we’re going to lose a lot of points if he wrecks or simply has a disappointing race, but there are a lot of reasons why we don’t think that’s going to happen–the main one being that Edwards has completed 100% of the laps over the last 25 Sprint Cup races, and he also has the best average finish over the span as well. Here at Texas, Cousin Carl is on a three-race streak of top 10 finishes, and he wound up 5th in the fall race last November. He also has three career wins at this track. For this pick to work out, we need Edwards to lead about 50 laps or more, and that’s definitely possible. The #19 Toyota was 2nd-fastest in that final practice session on Friday and has really had speed all week long. Another option in this price range is Brad Keselowski, but as of now we’re going with the pole sitter Edwards.
EDIT: We’re going with Kyle Busch and Jeffrey Earnhardt tonight instead of Carl Edwards and Christ Buescher.
Chris Buescher ($6.50) – We’ve been holding Matt DiBenedetto as our lowest priced driver for the last month or so but this week we’re switching over to Chris Buescher. The #34 Ford will roll off the grid in 34th place for the Duck Commander 500 on Saturday night, but we truly believe that Buescher has the possibility of finishing in the top 25–it’s just going to take a lot of luck. One reason is because back in the Atlanta race, he started 31st and finished 28th. Buescher ran the #34 Ford in this race last season and ended up finishing 30th after starting 40th. You can’t expect many points out of these low-priced drivers in NASCAR.com, and the best strategy is to pick the one that minimizes the risk of losing points. In our opinion, that is Chris Buescher for Texas.
Danica Patrick ($12.00) – We’re doubling down on Danica Patrick this weekend, as we also have her on our FOX Fantasy Auto roster (click here to see that). We thought about putting Ty Dillon in this roster spot but we couldn’t afford him after adding the rest of the drivers above to our roster. So, we’re going to go with Danica, and we’re somewhat confident in this pick. First of all, she finished 16th in both Texas races last season, and she was 9th-fastest in Happy Hour for this year’s Duck Commander 500. She also starts 26th on Saturday night, which means it’s going to be minimal damage if she nails the wall. Another reason to like Danica this weekend is because she’s coming off her best finish of the season (16th) at Martinsville and has been a top 20 car for pretty much every Sprint Cup race in 2016. She wasn’t really at Daytona and she wound up finishing 38th after getting wrecked by Kasey Kahne at Fontana, but other than that she hasn’t finished worse than 21st this year. We’ll take a top 20 and run with it if Danica can deliver on Saturday night.
Race Winner: Jimmie Johnson
Manufacturer: Chevrolet
