The best strategy for all teams in NASCAR.com Fantasy Live this weekend is to go for the lap leaders. We’re set to make 500 circuits around Bristol Motor Speedway here on Sunday afternoon and that means there will be 250 bonus points up for grabs for both laps led and fastest lap, equaling a total of 500 bonus points. Those are much more valuable than the points for picking the winner. So, yes, depending on how the race shakes out, it might be better to pick the driver who leads 200 laps and finishes 20th than the driver who leads 10 laps and wins the race. This is the same strategy we used at Martinsville a couple weeks ago, which means it’s usually best to pick the guys who start up front and risk the place differential loss.
Speaking of Martinsville, we missed the boat with our NASCAR.com Fantasy Live team that race but bounced back with a decent week at Texas, totaling 225.5 points. Unfortunately we went with Kyle Busch over Carl Edwards last week and missed out on all of those points Carl got for leading. Anyway, we are now in 10,635th place (95.48 percentile) and looking to have a big week at Bristol.
NASCAR.com Fantasy Live Picks for the Bristol Food City 500
Jimmie Johnson ($26.50) – We still have JJ locked in at $26.50 from a month or so ago, but with this roster we have for Bristol there’s going to be some room to work with, so you might be able to fit him in there as well even if you don’t have him at that price. It would be foolish to drop Jimmie this week even though it doesn’t look like the #48 Chevrolet can go out and dominate this race. He starts 6th, so there’s some risk there for place differential in the case that he has some bad luck, but if nothing goes wrong on Sunday, Johnson should be a solid top 5 car. He’s only been to victory lane once here at Bristol Motor Speedway but he’s currently on a three-race streak of top 5 finishes here. This #48 Chevrolet ranked 6th on the overall speed chart during Happy Hour on Saturday and was 5th in ten-lap average during that session.
Kyle Busch ($28.00) – Rowdy is going to be on a whole bunch of our rosters this weekend and the NASCAR.com Fantasy Live game is no exception. We expect Kyle to lead the most laps here in the Food City 500 on Sunday and that means we should get plenty of bonus points for both laps led and fastest laps in this game. Busch will start Sunday’s Food City 500 from the 5th place, and while that isn’t ideal for a game that takes into account place differential, we’re not too worried about that. This #18 team has been almost unstoppable this season and is going for its third Sprint Cup win in a row. Busch had the best ten-lap average in Practice #2 on Saturday and ranked 1st in that category in Happy Hour. Translation? He has a good car. Rowdy is a five-time winner here at Bristol Motor Speedway and had one of the best cars here when we raced in the fall last season. We also have him locked in at that $28.00 price point, which saves us a quarter.
Matt Kenseth ($26.00) – As we wrote earlier this week, it’s very possible that Matt Kenseth turns his luck around here soon, and when that happens it wouldn’t surprise us to see him go on a run of two or three wins over a couple months of racing. This #20 team has speed every single week, they just can’t seem to put together a mistake-free race. However, as we’ve seen many times in the past, all it takes is one “right” call, and they’ll be off. Bristol is a great track for Kenseth, and while it’s not ideal for a driver to turn their season around here, it’s still possible. He’s been to victory lane four times in “Thunder Valley” and is the defending winner of this race. Kenseth also has another victory here in the last five races, as he won the 2013 fall race. He finished 3rd in the fall race two years ago. For Sunday’s Food City 500, the #20 Toyota is going to roll off the grid on the outside pole alongside his teammate Carl Edwards. We’re really hoping that Edwards does his patented “I won the pole but I’m not going to lead many laps” and Kenseth goes out and leads a handful at the start. The #20 Toyota is going to have to lead a portion of this race for this roster to pay off, but we’re willing to take that gamble.
Cole Whitt ($5.00) – Here’s our roster filler for the weekend. We would have liked to jump up there and grab Matt DiBenedetto, but the cap room simply isn’t there. We don’t really have a preference for the four or so drivers you can pick in this price range. We’re going with Cole Whitt because he starts 39th and had a decent ten-lap average in Happy Hour–for him anyway (he ranked 32nd out of 38). Whitt also ran 30th at Martinsville a couple of weeks ago and actually hasn’t finished worse than 30th in the last three Sprint Cup races.
Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. ($13.75) – We’re really hoping that the typical Bristol race plays out, because that’s going to mean a whole lot of place differential points from Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. We can’t really explain why he has had such good runs here at Bristol, but through six career starts at this track, Ricky owns the best average finish of all drivers in the Sprint Cup Series. No, that’s not a lie. Call it luck or what have you, the fact of the matter is that Stenhouse has never finished worse than 21st at this track and has three finishes of 6th or better in the last four Bristol races. He started in the mid-20s for all of those top 10 runs as well. This weekend, Ricky will roll off the grid from the 32nd starting spot, but he should be able to pass the lesser cars early on, and with a well-timed caution, stay on the lead lap. From there, you never know what’s going to happen.
NOTE: Another roster combination that is possible–and the one that we initially had–is swapping out Matt Kenseth and Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. for Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott. With Larson and Elliott, you’re going for place differential points, as they both start mid-pack. With Kenseth and Stenhouse, you’re going for laps led and some place differential points.
Race Winner: Kyle Busch
Manufacturer: Toyota
