It’s Bristol, Baby! The Food City 500 on Sunday afternoon will be the second short track race of the season for the Sprint Cup Series, and if this one ends up anything like Martinsville did,we might see some surprise faces up front. The thing about Bristol is that it’s very hard to consistently post good finishes here: one mistake on pit road can find you multiple laps down, and let’s not even talk about if you are involved in a wreck or something. Track position will be pivotal here on Sunday, so common sense says that the drivers starting up front should be the safest options this week.
Our Fantasy Racing Online team had another rough week at Texas last Saturday night, thanks to Brian Vickers and Greg Biffle both wrecking out. Our team is on this off-on streak in Yahoo!, as we have had been alternating near-200-point weeks with 300-plus-point weeks. Hopefully that trend stays true and we can score a bunch of points this weekend, and then focus on breaking out of this early season slump at Richmond next weekend.
Yahoo! A Group Pick and Final Rankings for Bristol
Our Fantasy Racing Online team went with Kyle Busch and Joey Logano for this year’s Food City 500, and really the only reason we put the latter on there was because we thought he had the opportunity for some qualifying bonus points (thanks for the 3, Joey). It’s really been our intention to start Kyle Busch all week, and the only way that was going to change was if our other A Group driver looked like he could dominate the race on Sunday. We just don’t see Joey Logano doing that. Kyle Busch is a five-timmer winner here at Bristol (in the Cup Series) and led 192 laps in the fall race here last season. He starts 5th on Sunday and had the best car in the morning practice session on Saturday. In Happy Hour, Rowdy was 2nd in ten-lap average behind Kyle Larson. We’re starting Kyle Busch on Sunday.
Final A Group Rankings: (1) Kyle Busch, (2) Jimmie Johnson, (3) Kevin Harvick, (4) Matt Kenseth, (5) Joey Logano, (6) Denny Hamlin, (7) Brad Keselowski, (8) Dale Earnhardt, Jr., (9) Kurt Busch
Yahoo! B Group Picks and Final Rankings for Bristol
Well, Carl Edwards got the pole again this week, and for those of you who rostered him, we know it’s going to be hard to sit him. As we said last week, this #19 team is right on the edge of getting to victory lane, and getting the pole here at Bristol is a pretty big advantage. If you have eight or more Carl Edwards starts left, we think you have to roll with him this week. Six or less, we’d recommend keeping him on the bench. And if you’re sitting at that magical seven starts left, only start him if you think he can win. As far as Austin Dillon, we think he should be top 15 this week but this is another great opportunity to keep him on the bench and save your starts for the intermediate tracks. As far as our Fantasy Racing Online team, we don’t have either Edwards or Austin Dillon, and we kept Martin Truex, Jr. off this week as well.
Our choices, if you remember back to our earlier weekly Yahoo post, are: Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. (starts 32nd), Paul Menard (starts 14th), Ryan Newman (starts 17th), and Kyle Larson (starts 25th). We really planned on using Stenhouse this weekend, but that qualifying effort is concerning. We think he’s going to be a great pick in leagues that award points for place differential, but unfortunately, that’s not how Yahoo! is set up. The safest options we have are the RCR teammates of Paul Menard and Ryan Newman.
As far as Practice #2 on Saturday morning, Newman looked the fastest of our B Group drivers, and Stenhouse didn’t look to terrible either. Menard had the 7th-best ten-lap average in that session. In Happy Hour, Larson looked the most impressive of those three with the best ten-lap average of all drivers. Newman hasn’t finished worse than 13th in the last three races here at Bristol and came home 10th at Martinsville a couple of weeks ago (yes, a different track entirely, but still a short track). Menard finished 8th in that Martinsville race and has finished 11th or better in four of the last six races here at Bristol. So while we would like to use Stenhouse this week, we’re going to go the safe route here in Yahoo! and roll with Ryan Newman and Paul Menard for our B Group drivers this weekend. Although we do think Larson could surprise some people on Sunday, and we might make a last minute switch with him.
Final B Group Rankings: (1) Carl Edwards (2) Martin Truex, Jr., (3) Kasey Kahne, (4) Ryan Newman, (5) Kyle Larson, (6) Paul Menard, (7) Austin Dillon, (8) A.J. Allmendinger, (9) Casey Mears, (10) Jamie McMurray, (11) Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., (12) Greg Biffle, (13) Trevor Bayne, (14) Aric Almirola, (15) Danica Patrick, (16) Clint Bowyer
Yahoo! C Group Pick and Final Rankings for Bristol
The two C Group drivers we have to choose from this week are Chase Elliott and Ty Dillon. The former qualified 19th while the latter will roll off the grid 34th. This gives a major advantage to Chase Elliott. Also, the #14 Chevrolet hasn’t really shown anything all weekend. Ty was 31st-fastest in Practice #2 on Saturday morning and then was just 26th on the Happy Hour speed chart. Meanwhile, Elliott was 2nd to Kyle Busch’s fastest lap in the first Saturday session and was 2nd-fastest in Happy Hour as well. Head-to-head, the clear choice between these two is Chase, but we have to take into account the whole start saving situation in the Yahoo! Auto Racing game. Therefore, we’re going to start Ty Dillon on Sunday afternoon and hope for the best. If he can stay on the lead lap early, he should be able to contend for a mid-to-high 20s finish.
Final C Group Rankings: (1) Chase Elliott, (2) Ryan Blaney, (3) David Ragan, (4) Ty Dillon, (5) Chis Buescher, (6) Brian Scott, (7) Landon Cassill, (8) Matt DiBenedetto, the rest
