Well, our Yahoo! team bounced back in a big way at Phoenix thanks to the win from Kevin Harvick and the 2nd-place finish by Carl Edwards. We were a little bit on the fence that we used an Edwards start last week, but it was well worth it. Those are the kind of finishes you need to get out of the #19 Toyota and the #78 Toyota in the B Group this year. Now we just wish that we had the former on our roster this week at Fontana.
Unfortunately, what it takes to run well here at Fontana is a strong engine and a lot of talent–and that combination is typically only found in the A Group of Yahoo! Fantasy Auto Racing. There are some drivers in the lower tiers that can grab a respectable finish, but they’re pretty slim picking–and that requires us to make some tough decisions, especially when it comes to start saving.
Our final rankings for each driver grouping in the Yahoo! Auto Racing game for Fontana (Auto Club) can be found below. We arrived at these taking into account the practice results from Saturday along with what happened during qualifying on Friday. The early morning practice session on Saturday shouldn’t have too much weight to it, so we’d recommend focusing on Happy Hour. As usual, be sure to check out ifantasyrace.com for the practice speeds and other great fantasy content. And don’t forget about the Post Practice Predictions where we rank all drivers 1 through 25 for the Auto Club 400 on Sunday!
Yahoo! A Group Final Rankings for Fontana
We really thought that this decision was going to be tougher than it was, but here we are. To put it simply, Kyle Busch has the car that can contend for the win on Sunday. Kurt Busch, meanwhile, has had a rough weekend thus far, and rolled out a backup car during practice on Saturday–presumably because his primary car was just that bad. So, the #41 Chevrolet will start the Auto Club 400 from the rear of the field while the #18 Toyota will roll off the grid in 6th. Kyle Busch hasn’t finished outside of the top 5 in any race this season, and unless he finds unexpected trouble here on Sunday, that streak should continue. It’s a no brainer–The Choice: Kyle Busch
Final A Group Rankings: (1) Kevin Harvick, (2) Kyle Busch, (3) Jimmie Johnson, (4) Dale Earnhardt, Jr., (5) Joey Logano, (6) Brad Keselowski, (7) Matt Kenseth, (8) Matt Kenseth, (9) Denny Hamlin
Yahoo! B Group Final Rankings for Fontana
Well, we missed the boat on Carl Edwards this week. We purposely kept the #19 Toyota off of our Yahoo! roster for Fontana because we wanted to save starts, but we’re regretting that decision in a big way right now. Carl Edwards is by far the best B Group choice this week, and if you have him on your roster, you have to start him. He’s probably going to score more points than most A Group drivers this week, as the #19 Toyota should be a threat to win on Sunday.
Looking at our team, we have Austin Dillon, who won the pole on Friday and who looks like a solid top 10 choice. So we’ll go ahead and lock him in, especially since he should get another 10 bonus points for leading a lap. Now we have to decide on our second starter, and the choices are Paul Menard, Martin Truex, Jr., and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. Although we really like Stenhouse as a solid sleeper pick this weekend (he had the 5th-best ten-lap average in Happy Hour), we simply can’t take the risk of starting him here in the Yahoo! league. So it comes down to Paul Menard or Martin Truex, Jr.
Menard will start Sunday’s Auto Club 400 from the 13th-place starting spot, and should run around there all day. He is currently on a three-race streak of top 10s at this track, but we’re not sure that the #27 Chevrolet is fast enough to get up there this weekend. Paul did have the 8th-best ten-lap average in Happy Hour, though.
Truex starts a little further back (17th), but that #78 Toyota looked incredibly fast during the practice sessions on Saturday. So fast that if he would have qualified inside the top 5, we probably would have had Truex as a potential race winner. With that being said, you can’t ignore the mid-pack starting spot that Truex has this week, and this #78 team seems to struggle a little more than most when they aren’t racing in ideal conditions. Speed-wise the #78 Toyota is better than the #27 Chevrolet, but we told ourselves we’re not going to use Truex unless he’s a for-sure top 5 pick. We might change our minds before the race but as of now… The Choices: Austin Dillon and Paul Menard
Final B Group Rankings: (1) Carl Edwards, (2) Austin Dillon (3) Martin Truex, Jr. (4) Ryan Newman, (5) Paul Menard, (6) Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., (7) Kasey Kahne, (8) Jamie McMurray, (9) A.J. Allmendinger, (10) Greg Biffle, (11) Trevor Bayne, (12) Casey Mears, (13) Aric Almirola, (14) Danica Patrick, (15) Kyle Larson, (16) Clint Bowyer
Yahoo! C Group Final Rankings for Fontana
We’ll go ahead and say it: if you have Chase Elliott on your roster this weekend, start him. The rookie tends to race better than he practices and qualifies, and he almost went out and won the pole on Friday. I’m quietly expecting a very good race out of him this weekend. Now, unfortunately, we don’t have the luxury of starting Elliott because we kept him off our roster this week. Instead we went with Ryan Blaney and Brian Vickers to try and save starts. The #21 Ford qualified 14th on Friday while the #14 Chevrolet ended up a full ten spots further back in 24th. We think Ryan Blaney has the potential to grab a top 10 finish here on Sunday while Brian Vickers hasn’t shown a whole lot this weekend. The #14’s ceiling looks to be right around 18th or so. We’d love to save a Blaney start this week, but it’s simply impossible to trust Brian Vickers. The Choice: Ryan Blaney
Side note: if for some reason you put Chris Buescher on your roster this week, it might be worth giving him a shot. He qualified 16th for Sunday’s Auto Club 400 and wound up finishing 20th in this race one year ago while driving this #34 Ford.
Final C Group Rankings: (1) Chase Elliott, (2) Ryan Blaney, (3) Brian Vickers, (4) Chris Buescher, (5) Regan Smith, (6) Brian Scott, (7) Matt DiBenedetto, (8) Landon Cassill, the rest
