Darlington Fantasy NASCAR Front Runner Rankings

Jeff Gordon – Jeff Gordon is returning to action behind the wheel of the #88 at Darlington. He’s a living legend at Darlington and it ranks as one of his best tracks. In his career at Darlington he has 7 wins, has finished in the top five 54% percent of the time and in the top ten 66% percent of the time. Performance wise on Sunday night I think he has top ten potential, but realistically he’ll be a low double digits driver. This year in his three races where he didn’t have seat belt issues he’s had results of 11th, 13th and 14th. Last year at Darlington Jeff Gordon ran well but faded at the end. When the checkered flag waved he finished 16th but don’t overlook his 9th best driver rating and 9th place average running position. In 2014 Jeff Gordon was very competitive and was better than his 7th place result. Strength wise I thought he had the second best car. His strength in the race was being good over long runs. His weakness in that race was restarts because he lost a few positions every time. In addition to finishing 7th he earned the 2nd best driver rating, had a 3rd place average running position and led 8 laps. In 2013 he had a very solid performance. He finished 3rd, earned the 4th best driver rating, had a 6th place average running position and led 16 laps. One aspect I like about Jeff Gordon is that it appears Hendrick Motorsports has recently found more speed. (Yahoo C List)

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Ryan Newman – Ryan Newman is a “skill driver”, and he runs his best when the driver is a big part of the equation. At Darlington he’s run well. Since 2005 he’s only twice finished outside of 4th and 13th. Over the last three Darlington races he’s finished between 10th and 13th. Last year Newman didn’t have a great showing but finished 13th. Also in that race he earned the 17th best driver rating and had an 18th place average running position. His race wasn’t completely incident free. On lap 47 he spun and brought out the caution. I will note he didn’t get any noticeable damage. In 2014 Newman had a solid showing. He finished 10th, had a 10th place average running position and earned the 8th best driver rating. In 2013 Newman also finished 10th. That 10th place finish deserves an asterisk mark. In fantasy NASCAR it’s important to look beyond the results and see what really happened in the race. In the event Newman got lapped twice and got two Lucky Dog Awards. That makes his 10th place result look less appealing to me. Also in the race he had a 16th place average running position and earned the 16th best driver rating. In 2012 he was mid-teens good but was involved in a late wreck with 7 laps to go. (Yahoo B Driver)

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