Daytona 500: Fantasy NASCAR “Front Runner” Rankings

Carl Edwards – Last year in the Daytona 500 Carl Edwards started on the pole but failed to lead a lap. That shouldn’t be to surprising because he’s never led a lap in the Great American Race (8th Daytona 500). In this race last year Carl Edwards was largely M.I.A. His Ford wasn’t as strong as his teammates and he essentially just rode around for the entirety of the event until he made his move at the end which involved going below the yellow line coming to the finish. It worked out pretty well for him though because he finished 8th (didn’t get penalized). In the 2012 summer race he looked much more competitive. His average running position was 9th and he finished 6th. Since the 2009 Daytona July race Edwards has been very good here. In these seven races he’s finished in the top eight in every race but one. The one race he didn’t finish in this range was in the tandem drafting era when a bump from Biffle ended his day early. His average finish in these seven races minus that incident is a series best 5.8. In this years Daytona 500 Carl Edwards will have the defending Daytona 500 champion crew chief Jimmy Fennig on his pit box.

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Clint Bowyer – Clint Bowyer is an elite restrictor plate track driver but he’s been much better at Talladega. In the last six races there he’s won twice and has finished in the top 7 five times. Recently at Daytona he’s been out of luck. In the last five races here he has a best finish of 11th and an average finish of 22nd. Prior to these five races he had been successful. In his first nine Daytona races he had six top tens and tied Matt Kenseth for the best average finish in that span of races (12.3). Last season Bowyer finished 11th and 29th. Regardless of his tough luck as of late I expect him to have a strong performance.

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Paul Menard – Paul Menard has quietly had solid fantasy production at plate tracks. In 2011 he scored the most points on this track type and last season he ranked 11th. Menard has been very good at Daytona recently. In the last four races he has three top tens and has led in three of them. When you stack him up against the competition in the last four races he has the best average finish (9.3) and is the only driver to finish in the top fifteen in every race.

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