Richmond Fantasy NASCAR Front Runner Rankings

Erik Jones – Don’t overlook Erik Jones at Richmond. Phoenix is a similar track and this spring he ran extremely well at that venue. When the checkered flag waved he finished 8th, had an 8th place average running position and earned the 7th best driver rating. At Richmond I think he has a great chance to perform at a similar level. In NASCAR’s top series Jones has never raced at Richmond. Last fall at RIR in the Xfinity Series Jones finished 2nd. Look for Jones to be low double digits good and challenge for a top ten. (Yahoo C Driver)

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Ryan Newman – Ryan Newman is a good driver at shorter flat tracks and Richmond ranks as one of his better venues. He’s a past champion and it’s home to his second best average finish (12.3). Additionally at RIR it should be noted he’s finished in the top ten 53% percent of the time and in the top fifteen 73% percent of the time. Recently at Richmond he’s been in a funk, in the last three races he’s finished 18th or worse. Last fall Newman finished a misleading 28th. Just one lap before his wreck with 38 laps to go he was running in 10th. Performance wise I think he was realistically low-teens good. In spring 2016 Newman had a good car but finished 18th. I will note I view that as a misleading result. He was really low double digits good. With 82 laps to go while he was running just outside the top ten he had a cut tire and spun. In fall 2015 he finished 20th but you can’t read into that result too much because he was in “points protection mode” because of Chase ramifications. In the four RIR races prior to that he had a 7.8 average finish, the 8th best driver rating and an 11.3 average running position. (Yahoo B Driver)

Ryan Blaney – Ryan Blaney can run well at shorter flat tracks and should be considered a sleeper. His 33.5 average finish should do a good job scaring people away and keeping him under the radar. Last fall at Richmond there really wasn’t a lot you could take away from his race. He started in 20th and on lap #21 while he was running in 20th he had a spotter issue and wrecked. That sent him to the garage area and led to his 39th place finish. In spring 2016 in his other RIR start he didn’t have a good race. He started in 28th but since the race was green for a long time (first 157 laps) it led to him getting lapped. When he was going to finally get his lap back NASCAR penalized him for restarting improperly which kept him off the lead lap. When the checkered flag waved he finished 28th and had a 25th place average running position. (Yahoo B Driver)

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