The Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series is back at a 1.5-mile racetrack this weekend, as Texas Motor Speedway is home for Sunday’s O’Reilly Auto Parts 500. So far this weekend, we saw a crazy qualifying session on Friday, Jimmie Johnson win the pole and have the fastest car in both practice sessions, and if you watched the Truck and Xfinity Series races, a lot more wrecks than usual. Will that be the case with the Cup cars on Sunday? It’s hard to tell, but what we can do is go off of the numbers and statistics we have to try and predict what’ll happen in this weekend’s race. It’s time to turn to the Fantasy Racing Online algorithm and see which drivers it likes the best for Sunday’s O’Reilly Auto Parts 500 at Texas Motor Speedway.
There are quite a few statistics that go into the Power Index formula, including recent performance both overall and at Texas 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.
Texas Fantasy NASCAR Power Index Rankings
| Rank | Driver | Power Index |
| 1. | Logano, Joey | -41.8 |
| 2. | Harvick, Kevin | -41.0 |
| 3. | Busch, Kyle | -36.1 |
| 4. | Keselowski, Brad | -30.1 |
| 5. | Busch, Kurt | -29.3 |
| 6. | Blaney, Ryan | -27.0 |
| 7. | Elliott, Chase | -25.9 |
| 8. | Truex, Jr., Martin | -23.6 |
| 9. | Jones, Erik | -20.2 |
| 10. | Larson, Kyle | -11.9 |
| 11. | Hamlin, Denny | -11.3 |
| 12. | Almirola, Aric | -10.5 |
| 13. | Stenhouse, Jr., Ricky | -7.6 |
| 14. | Johnson, Jimmie | -5.4 |
| 15. | Byron, William | -3.6 |
| 16. | Bowyer, Clint | -2.6 |
| 17. | Dillon, Austin | 2.0 |
| 18. | Bowman, Alex | 4.2 |
| 19. | Suarez, Daniel | 5.5 |
| 20. | Buescher, Chris | 7.3 |
| 21. | Menard, Paul | 7.9 |
| 22. | Dillon, Ty | 8.7 |
| 23. | Wallace, Bubba | 10.1 |
| 24. | Newman, Ryan | 11.2 |
| 25. | Hemric, Daniel | 13.0 |
| 26. | McDowell, Michael | 21.9 |
| 27. | Ragan, David | 26.4 |
| 28. | Preece, Ryan | 26.6 |
| 29. | DiBenedetto, Matt | 33.0 |
| 30. | Tifft, Matt | 41.4 |
| 31. | Chastain, Ross | 42.6 |
| 32. | Cassill, Landon | 46.3 |
| 33. | LaJoie, Corey | 49.9 |
| 34. | Kligerman, Parker | 55.6 |
| 35. | Sorenson, Reed | 58.9 |
| 36. | McLeod, BJ | 60.5 |
| 37. | Smithley, Garrett | 66.2 |
| 38. | Currey, Bayley | 68.7 |
| 39. | Hill, Timmy | 88.1 |
