Post Practice Fantasy NASCAR Predictions: Bristol 2 – IRWIN Tools Night Race
Logano Looking To Ride Momentum Into Chase
The most anticipated race of the season is this Saturday night and chances are you’re either going to have a really good fantasy week or a really bad one. NASCAR ran a really condensed schedule at Bristol Motor Speedway this weekend with two practice sessions on Friday afternoon and qualifying on Friday evening. Practice #1 was when most cars worked on their race trim and in Happy Hour the majority focused solely on qualifying. To view the speeds from each session, click here: Practice #1 — Happy Hour. Ryan also put together extensive notes on each practice and those can be found here: Practice #1 — Happy Hour. Denny Hamlin won the pole for this year’s IRWIN Tools Night Race and the full starting lineup can be found by clicking here. Personally I think the winner is going to be the driver that can effectively run the high line around this half-mile race track. There’s a lot of heavy hitters that have things going against them this weekend so it should be a fun race on Saturday night.
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Final Top 15 Ranking For The IRWIN Tools Night Race:
11. Carl Edwards – Starts 3rd – Yahoo! B Group
**Risk Factor: Medium Risk**
Cousin Carl is getting good at qualifying, I’ll give him that, but in most fantasy leagues your success depends solely on where your drivers finish, not start. Edwards has the nickname “Concrete Carl” for a reason: he’s a two-time winner here at Bristol and owns an impressive career average finish of 14.6 over eighteen starts. At Dover (the other concrete track), he has an average finish of 8.6 among one victory and has posted a single-digit finish in eleven of the last fourteen races there. Now for the bad news. Edwards has finished 18th or worse in the last three Cup races at Bristol and has finished outside the top 10 in six of the last nine. That being said, I think we could see a decent run out of the #99 on Saturday night. As far as momentum goes, this team is quietly putting together one heck of a “regular season”. Edwards is currently 3rd in the points standings and has finished 13th or better in each of the last five Cup races, as well as in seven of the last nine. The main thing holding me back from ranking Carl any higher this week is the fact that he never made any long race runs in practice on Friday. Yes, this is generally what this team does, but when they have a really good race car they make those long runs. I’m not saying the #99 Ford is going to be terrible on Saturday night, I’m just saying don’t get your hopes up with Carl’s 3rd-place run in qualifying. A top 10 wouldn’t surprise me one bit out of him in this year’s IRWIN Tools Night Race—which would be his first at this track since 2011.
12. Jeff Gordon – Starts 32nd – Yahoo! A Group
**Risk Factor: Medium Risk**
Jeff Gordon has a very good Chevrolet underneath him this weekend at Bristol, but just as it has been the story all season long, whether or not he’ll get the finish or not is the question. The good news? Jeff has finished 3rd in the last two night races at Bristol. He also had an incredible car here back in March but blew a tire while leading and finished 34th. As all fantasy racers should know by now, though, you can’t predict mechanical issues. At Martinsville back in April the #24 came home 3rd, and at Dover—another concrete track, which is Bristol’s surface—Gordon also finished 3rd. Assuming he can stay out of trouble on Saturday night, Jeff should challenge for a top 5. He’s a five-time winner at The Bullring and owns a career average finish of 12.4 over forty-one career starts. Gordon also had the 2nd-best ten-lap average during the first practice session on Friday and posted top 5 lap times in both sessions. There are just two things I don’t like about Gordon this weekend: one, he really screwed up qualifying and will start pretty far back (hello NASCAR.com Fantasy Live lock pick!), and the second is that he has only two top 10s in the last eight Bristol races. That being said, those top 10s are the aforementioned 3rd-place runs these last two years. Momentum-wise this team has five top 10s in the last eight Sprint Cup races. Gordon is going to need a win to get in the Chase this year but I just don’t see that happening this Saturday night, especially from his starting spot.
13. Kyle Busch – Starts 43rd – Yahoo! B Group
**Risk Factor: Medium Risk**
There’s no such thing as a “lock pick” at Bristol Motor Speedway, but Kyle Busch is about as close as you can get. He’s a five-time Cup winner in Thunder Valley and owns an incredible 9.8 average finish—almost two spots better than 2nd place on that list (Dale Earnhardt, Jr. with 11.6). In seventeen career starts at Bristol, Rowdy has twelve top 10s to his name and eight of those have also been top 5s. Additionally, he has led more laps here (1,430) than anyone else in the series except for Jeff Gordon, who is in the lead with 2,703. Now for the bad news. Kyle really screwed up in qualifying and wrecked his #18 Toyota and will start from the back of the field. At the time of this post he won’t be going to a backup but it wouldn’t make a difference. Before qualifying, however, Busch was probably viewed as the favorite going into Saturday night: he had the 3rd-fastest ten-lap average in 1st practice and paced the field in Happy Hour. So what does this 43rd-place starting spot do for Kyle Busch from a fantasy viewpoint? Well, looking at it with absolute optimism, Rowdy never qualifies well here at Bristol. In his five wins, he’s averaged a starting spot of 17th, and in 2010 he started in 38th and finished 9th. The #18 is fast but it’s going to take a lot for Kyle Busch to win this race on Saturday night. I still think he can pull off a top 10 finish but a top 5 is going to be difficult.
14. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. – Starts 19th – Yahoo! B Group
**Risk Factor: Low Risk**
Believe it or not, Dale Earnhardt, Jr. has the 2nd-best average finish here at Bristol (11.6). That being said, he’s consistent here but very rarely does he have a great run. Junebug finished 6th in the spring race here back in March but that’s his lone top 10 in at The Bullring since 2010. That being said, he has just one finish worse than 16th at this track since 2001. Like I said, consistency. In first practice, I liked what I saw out of Junior–mainly his ranking on the ten-lap average chart (7th). Qualifying isn’t his forte and he’ll roll off the grid in 19th on Saturday night. If he started a little closer to the front I would consider Earnhardt a legitimate threat for a top 10 finish but going into the IRWIN Tools Night Race I think a top 15 is much more likely. This team desperately needs a good run to make sure they stay in Chase contention so Junior won’t do anything stupid on Saturday night. He’ll just be his normal self at Bristol and finish in the teens before heading to Atlanta. The chassis that this team brought to Bristol this weekend is the same one that Junior finished 10th with at Dover earlier this year.
15. Denny Hamlin – Starts 1st – Yahoo! A Group
**Risk Factor: High Risk**
Normally the pole sitter here at Bristol gets a bump in my rankings because of the importance of track position at this venue. Denny Hamlin is the exception. This team has absolutely nothing going for them whatsoever. If there was such thing as negative momentum, they would fall into that category. Hamlin hasn’t finished better than 18th in over two and a half months and although I think that will change on Saturday night, the question I have for anybody considering taking Denny Hamlin this weekend is simple: why? About the only good thing that is tied to the #11 right now is the pole run on Friday. There’s so much more value and less riskiness among the other “heavy hitters” of fantasy racing that I don’t see a point in even looking in Hamlin’s direction. This team never made a long run in either practice session this weekend and Denny has just two top 10s in the last seven races here at Bristol. Let’s not forget that strategy could come into play on Saturday night and Darian Grubb is the worst at out-smarting his peers on the pit box.
A Few Words About Other Drivers:
I really like Paul Menard this weekend but he just didn’t fit into my top 15 rankings. He’s posted three straight top 10s here at Bristol and had the 10th-best ten-lap average during 1st Practice on Friday. He’ll start 21st when the green flag waves but should be better than that. Juan Montoya is driving desperate to prove he deserves a Cup ride next season. He has a fast car again this weekend but desperate and Bristol do not mix. He’s had a couple top 10 runs here in his career and could surprise people on Saturday night but it’s far too risky for me. He was 6th in ten-lap average during 1st Practice. Mark Martin is admittedly too slow to get a real handle on Bristol and I really see no point in taking him in any league. He qualified 11th but it would surprise me if the old timer finished top 20 on Saturday night. Marcos Ambrose and Aric Almirola are a couple sleeper picks to keep your eyes on, as usual when we stop at Bristol. Ambrose is great at saving his brakes and Almirola is a good qualifier here (he’ll start 10th). I’d take the #9 over the #43 if I had a choice. I haven’t seen anything special out of Kevin Harvick this weekend, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he snuck into the top 10 before it’s all said and done on Saturday night. He qualified 15th and has finished between 11th and 15th in five of the last seven Cup races in Thunder Valley. David Ragan is the deep sleeper of the week. He put down a qualifying lap in 1st Practice that put him at the top of the board and worked on race runs in Happy Hour while posting the 17th-best lap. He finished 21st here back in March and will roll off the grid in 17th for this year’s night race. Finally, I don’t even see a point in considering Greg Biffle this weekend considering they’ve seemed a bit lost since Friday and he starts 29th.
