The schedule at Pocono Raceway this weekend was a little weird. We had one practice session on Friday in which we had fog to deal with and then it rained to end it. We then got qualifying in later that day, and Brad Keselowski got the pole. And then on Saturday we had one single practice that was about an hour long. So really we only saw the cars in race-like conditions for an hour this weekend. So considering that Pocono races typically have a lot of strategy, and teams are going to have to tweak on these cars as much as possible during the race, this is a nice weekend to take some “off the wall” picks on your fantasy teams.
As far as this Fantasy Racing Online Yahoo! team goes, we’re starting to gain some momentum. We had 318 points at Charlotte last weekend, giving us our second straight 300+ point week to close out the Spring Segment. We’re back up to the 48th percentile among all teams. Remember, it’s a marathon, not a sprint.
Yahoo! A Group Pick and Final Rankings for Pocono
Well, that didn’t work out. We decided to avoid Joey Logano this week because the #22 team seems off to us, and he starts on the outside pole. He’s also been the best driver here at Pocono since it was repaved in 2011. Luckily, only 16.8% of the teams that are playing this game have Joey on their roster. As far as our two A Group choices this week, we went with Jimmie Johnson and Denny Hamlin, who will start 7th and 10th (respectively) for this weekend’s race. We think that both the #48 Chevrolet and the #11 Toyota are going to be solid top 10 cars, but we have to give the edge to Jimmie in this one. In Happy Hour, the six-time champion was 3rd-fastest on the speed chart and was one of the few cars that made a long run, ending up 5th in ten-lap average. Johnson finished 3rd and 6th in the two Pocono races last season and we’re hoping for something similar this time around. We’re using our second Jimmie Johnson start of the season this weekend at Pocono.
As far as the Penske Fords, we think they’re going to lead laps, but we don’t have them as solid top 5 finishers going into the race. Kyle Busch looks good but hasn’t posted a top 5 finish at Pocono since 2011 and has back-to-back mid-30s finishes. This is the perfect place for Dale Earnhardt, Jr. to break out of his slump, as he has five top 5s in the last six Pocono races and starts 8th this weekend. Kurt Busch should be a solid top 10 pick as usual, and Denny Hamlin and Matt Kenseth could end up anywhere from 5th to 12th, in our opinion.
Final A Group Rankings: (1) Kevin Harvick, (2) Jimmie Johnson, (3) Brad Keselowski, (4) Kyle Busch, (5) Joey Logano, (6) Dale Earnhardt, Jr., (7) Kurt Busch, (8) Denny Hamlin, (9) Matt Kenseth
Yahoo! B Group Picks and Final Rankings for Pocono
Qualifying was pretty much dominated by the A Group this weekend. Carl Edwards ended up 5th and Tony Stewart wound up in 6th, but the rest of the top 10 were all A Group drivers. That’s not overly concerning, though, because this is a track where we’re not going to see many B Group drivers up front at the end. If you put Tony Stewart on your team this weekend, go ahead and run him. Honestly, the only time when Smoke is even close to worth starting is when he qualifies up front, and that doesn’t happen often. The #14 Chevrolet was 13th on the Happy Hour speed chart on Saturday and ranked 4th in ten-lap average. The Stewart-Haas Racing cars are great at Pocono and Tony finished 9th here last fall after starting 5th.
Our team is in a position that probably a lot of others are in as well: not a lot to choose from. We have Kasey Kahne, Kyle Larson, Ryan Newman, and Jamie McMurray. We’ll go ahead and eliminate McMurray right off the bat because 1.) the #1 team has been regressing as of late, and 2.) Jamie qualified 26th. We’re also going to go ahead and choose one driver to start right off of the bat, and that’s Kasey Kahne. Yes, you heard–err, read–that correctly. As we have preached all week long, this is the race to take a chance, and that’s what we’re doing. Kahne starts 11th and has finished 13th or better in three of the last five Pocono races. He was just 20th on the speed chart in Happy Hour but if we can get a top 15 out of Kahne we’ll be happy.
So the choice comes down to Larson or Newman. We’re sitting with 6 Kyle Larson starts left and 7 with Ryan Newman. We think both of these drivers have top 15 potential, but Larson has a much higher upside. He has also never finished worse than 12th here at Pocono in four career starts. Newman finally got another top 10 finish at Charlotte last weekend and has posted seven top 10 finishes in the last ten Sprint Cup races here at Pocono–some of which were earned after starting mid-pack, like “The Rocketman” is this weekend (22nd). So right now we are leaning Kasey Kahne and Ryan Newman as our B Group starters, but we might switch it up to any combination of the three (Kahne, Newman, Larson) before the race.
Final B Group Rankings: (1) Martin Truex, Jr., (2) Carl Edwards, (3) Kyle Larson, (4) Ryan Newman, (5) Tony Stewart, (6) Kasey Kahne, (7) Greg Biffle, (8) Austin Dillon, (9) Paul Menard, (10) Jamie McMurray, (11) Aric Almirola, (12) Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., (13) A.J. Allmendinger, (14) Trevor Bayne, (15) Danica Patrick, (16) Clint Bowyer, (17) Casey Mears
Yahoo! C Group Pick and Final Rankings for Pocono
As we stated earlier this week, there are some viable start save options in the C Group for this race at Pocono. In fact, we didn’t put either of the rookies on our team for the Axalta “We Paint Winners” 400, instead opting for Ty Dillon in that #95 car along David Ragan. We were hoping the latter would have qualified a little higher than 34th, but that didn’t happen. Ragan is probably going to be a nice option in some other leagues this week, but we simply can’t start him over Ty Dillon this weekend. Yes, Dillon doesn’t have the best pit crew, and his equipment is somewhat questionable, but he’s one of those drivers that can just make laps on race day and end up finishing in the mid-20s. That’s all we’re hoping for, really. If there’s some wrecks, he might be able to squeeze into the top 20, and we’d be very happy with that. He ranked 28th in Happy Hour speed and we’re starting Ty Dillon in the C Group this weekend. Honestly, we wouldn’t waste a Blaney or Elliott start unless we had to.
Final C Group Rankings: (1) Ryan Blaney, (2) Chase Elliott, (3) Ty Dillon, (4) David Ragan, (5) Landon Cassill, (6) Brian Scott, (7) Regan Smith, (8) Chris Buescher, (9) Michael Annett, the rest
