Fantasy NASCAR Asterisk Mark Report – Bristol

Every week in NASCAR there’s drivers who have problems in the race and walk away with an asterisk mark finish. Understanding misleading results and knowing how good drivers truly were can help give you the edge on your competition. Many fantasy racers just look at results and assume that’s how good drivers were. This post explains who had a misleading result this spring at Bristol, and how good they truly were.

Matt Kenseth – Matt Kenseth had a great car at Bristol this spring. PROS Rankings wise I thought he had the second best car. If you just look at his 36th place result you would never know it. If Matt Kenseth had an incident free race he could’ve dominated. His race started going downhill on lap 187 when he blew a tire while leading and got into the wall hard. Prior to getting into the wall he led 75.9% percent of the race (142 laps). Later in the race on lap 323 he was running in the top ten again but got into the wall hard. That was a knockout blow.

Jimmie Johnson – Jimmie Johnson had one of the best cars this spring at Bristol but didn’t have an incident free race and finished 23rd. Performance wise I thought he had top five potential but he had a loose lug nut issue and his team elected not to come back to pit road again under yellow. That decision really burned them because on lap 300 while he was running in 3rd he came to pit road under green to fix the issue and that dropped him down 2 laps. He never bounced back from that.

Kyle Busch – Nobody had a more eventful day this spring than Kyle Busch. He completed just 258 laps but during his short race he had a flat tire and got in the wall hard (was in 3rd when it happened on lap 52), was spun (lap 116) and then the knock blow came on lap 260 when he got into the wall hard while running in 10th. If he had an incident free race I think he would’ve competed for a top five finish.