Bristol 2 Post Practice Fantasy NASCAR Predictions – IRWIN Tools Night Race

Good Ol’ Fashioned Saturday Night (Sunday Afternoon?) Racin’

One of the most anticipated races of the season is finally here, and it might not even start as scheduled. Rain is in the forecast for Bristol this weekend, and one of the most trusted weathermen on Twitter (Brian Neudorff–click here for his profile) thinks we have about a 50% chance of racing on Saturday night (as of 3 pm Friday). If we happen to get rained out until Sunday, it will make the practice sessions a little more valuable, as the teams practiced in the middle of the afternoon this weekend. Those results can be found here: Practice #1 — Happy Hour. Be sure to review Ryan’s notes for each as well: Practice #1 — Happy Hour. Kevin Harvick won the pole for this year’s IRWIN Tools Night Race, and the full starting lineup can be found by clicking here. With as fast as the leaders start lapping cars in Thunder Valley, being near the back is definitely not where you want to be when the green flag waves–although we’ve seen recently that if you have a really good car (and a little bit of luck) your race isn’t doomed from the start.

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Final Top 15 Ranking For The IRWIN Tools Night Race:

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11. Kurt Busch – Starts 7th – Yahoo! A Group
Pre-Practice Rank: 19th (change: +8)
**Risk Factor: High Risk**

Kurt Busch has finished outside of the top 30 in each of the last two Bristol races but he’s led a handful of laps (54 and 28) during them so that tells me he had at least a decent car. You should all know by now that you should expect disappointment out of Busch, but there are races where it pays to take a chance on him (Martinsville this year). He’s running an old Ryan Newman chassis this weekend, which generally spells “terrible run” for this team. However, in the chassis notes, it was mentioned that this particular one was updated for 2014, so maybe it won’t be that bad. Who knows. Kurt will start 7th in this year’s IRWIN Tools Night race and looked pretty good in practice on Friday, posting the 2nd and 4th-best ten-lap averages in the two sessions. He ranked 8th on the speed chart in Practice #1. This team is so up and down that they’re either going to finish top 5 or outside the top 25. It’s literally like flipping a coin. Personally, I tend to stay away from drivers like Kurt Busch, but he has a lot of upside this week. Remember, he used to own this place and is a five-time Cup winner at Bristol.

12. Clint Bowyer – Starts 14th – Yahoo! A Group
Pre-Practice Rank: 9th (change: -3)
**Risk Factor: Medium Risk**

Bowyer continues to pull good finishes out of his ass, which kind of makes sense since the Chase is right around the corner and he does this pretty much every year. Somehow Clint came home with a 6th-place finish at Michigan last weekend, despite looking like junk in practice and the first half of the race. That makes it eight finishes of 11th or better in the last eleven Sprint Cup races and four top 10s in the last six. Here at Bristol, Bowyer hasn’t finished worse than 15th since the 2011 season and had a string of three straight top 10s here from 2012 to 2013. His average finish of 9th over the last five Bristol races is second only to Brian Vickers’ 6th. However, Clint’s average driver rating (92.6) over those nine races is 9th among active drivers. Again, he tends to get better finishes than he deserves. The #15 Toyota didn’t show up on either ten-lap average chart on Friday, which is concerning at a place like Bristol. In terms of one fast lap, Bowyer was 25th-fastest in Practice #1 before bumping it up to 14th-quickest in Happy Hour. He’s running chassis no. 800 this week, which is the same one that Clint finished 4th with at Dover in June.

13. Carl Edwards – Starts 3rd – Yahoo! B Group
Pre-Practice Rank: 15th (change: +2)
**Risk Factor: Medium Risk**

Right now, I don’t have much confidence in the Roush-Fenway Racing cars at the high-speed tracks, but with short tracks like Bristol, there aren’t many concerns. As you probably remember, Cousin Carl went to victory lane here in Thunder Valley back in March via some pit strategy and luck. However, that’s his third Cup win here, which is somewhat surprising to me. The other two came back in 2008 and 2007. Over 20 career starts at Bristol, Edwards owns a decent average finish of 15.2. It’s hard for me to handicap him this week because in the four races before his win in March, Carl never finished better than 18th. However, in the twelve races before that, he never had a result worse than 16th. That was before the track modifications, though. As usual, the #99 team never did any long runs in practice, so I couldn’t get a very good read on Edwards. However, he starts up front and had one of the best cars in this race last season before engine problems hit (he led 119 laps). Both Carl and Greg will be top 15 cars to start the night, but they have track position in their favor and with a couple of wrecks they could see themselves inside the top 10.

14. Kasey Kahne – Starts 12th – Yahoo! A Group
Pre-Practice Rank: 14th (change: none)
**Risk Factor: Medium Risk**

This is probably too low of a ranking for Kasey Kahne, but I can’t trust him at all (and never have been able to) and that always bumps him down a few notches in my rankings. When it comes to consistency, Bristol Motor Speedway might be the best track for Kahne as of late. He’s on a four-race streak of top 10s here (including a win last season) and has ended up finishing 11th or better in seven of the last eight Cup races here. As I said before, all of the Hendrick cars are fast this weekend and the #5 Chevrolet is no exception. Kasey was 10th on the ten-lap average chart in Practice #1 on Friday and ended up 3rd on the overall speed chart in Happy Hour. Momentum-wise, this team hasn’t came home in a position worse than 16th since Daytona back in July, but Kasey has also had just one finish better than 10th over that span. I’d be more confident in Kahne this weekend if he would’ve put down a faster lap in that qualifying session but it didn’t happen. The #5 Chevrolet should be at least a top 15 car come Saturday night and might be able to make it up into the top 10 depending on how the IRWIN Tools Night Race goes.

15. Kyle Larson – Starts 40th – Yahoo! C Group
Pre-Practice Rank: 13th (change: -2)
**Risk Factor: High Risk**

Yeah, he burned me pretty bad at Michigan last week too, but it’s not so terrible considering a lot of other people had the #42 Chevrolet on their roster, too. Once again Larson is fast this weekend at Bristol, but I have a couple concerns; the first and most obvious fear I have with this rookie is that he lost it in qualifying and got into the wall. Larson will start 40th because of that, but should be able to make his way through the field if they get it all fixed. That would make him a great pick in NASCAR.com Fantasy Live. The second concern I have is that this team never made any long runs during either of the practice sessions on Friday. The good news, however, is that Larson was the fastest driver in Practice #1 and had the best five-lap average. In Happy Hour, Kyle ranked 5th on the speed chart. There’s not much statistical history for Larson here at Bristol but he finished 10th here in March while posting the 4th-best driver rating (104.5). As long as the damage from the wall in qualifying isn’t too bad, Larson should be fine on Saturday night–there won’t be many cars in the race that don’t have some sort of damage by the end of 500 laps anyway. Kyle was running the high line during practice, which I think will definitely pay dividends in the race this week and should be the fastest way around the track.

The Next Ten:

16. Greg Biffle
17. Ryan Newman
18. Paul Menard
19. Marcos Ambrose
20. Ricky Stenhouse, Jr.
21. Jamie McMurray
22. A.J. Allmendinger
23. Austin Dillon
24. Jeff Burton
25. Justin Allgaier

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