2015 Daytona 500 Post Practice Fantasy NASCAR Predictions
Well, the 2015 NASCAR Sprint Cup season hasn’t even started yet and there’s already more and enough story lines floating around. This will be Jeff Gordon’s final full-time season in the Sprint Cup series before he hands the #24 reigns off to Chase Elliott. Danica Patrick and Denny Hamlin are feuding after two on-track incidents occurred, the most recent in the Duel race on Thursday night. Oh, and Kurt Busch is now indefinitely suspended due to his legal issues and domestic abuse accusations. And the first race hasn’t even started yet.
Handicapping a race that’s at a restrictor plate track is very difficult, but there are some strategies that you can implement–although that’s all personal preference. I’m a numbers person so I tend to look at recent history. You can also choose to “go with the pack” and just pick the favorites so you’re in the same boat as most other fantasy racers after race #1. Or you could avoid the favorites and hope they wreck out, allowing you to gain valuable points. Or you can just get the old dartboard out and cross you fingers, it’s all up to you to decide.
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Jeff Gordon won the pole for Sunday’s Great American Race (of course, it’s just too good of a story not to happen) and he will lead the field to the green with teammate Jimmie Johnson alongside. The full starting lineup can be found by clicking here. The two Budweiser Duel races on Thursday night allowed fantasy players to see the cars on track, and those results can be found here: Duel #1 — Duel #2. There have been plenty of practice sessions this week but, honestly, I’m not even interested in looking at them; those speeds as close to worthless as possible for me, although I might use them as a tiebreaker when selecting my teams.
As usual with restrictor plate races, I’m going to take a different approach with this article. Once we get to Atlanta next weekend it’ll go back to my ranked top 25 drivers for the weekend. If you have any questions, feel free to send me a tweet. Good luck!
Drivers with a Legitimate Shot at Winning the Daytona 500:
Jimmie Johnson – Looking over the last four points-paying races at Daytona, guess who has the best average driver rating. Yep, Jimmie Johnson (with 104.0). He’s also the only Sprint Cup driver to lead over 100 laps during that span. “Six Time” won both races here in 2013 and followed those up with a solid 5th-place finish in last year’s Great American Race. Unfortunately, he disappointed fantasy owners everywhere with a 42nd-place result here last July. Hey, you can’t win ’em all. If you’ve paid attention to the on-track activity over the past week, it sure as hell seems like Hendrick Motorsports has every other organization covered when it comes to horsepower, and that’s going to show once again on Sunday. If Jimmie Johnson isn’t fighting for the 2015 Daytona 500 trophy this weekend it will be because he got wrecked or hit the wall. He also starts on the front row, and in case you didn’t know, starting position actually does matter at Daytona (check out the stats here).
Dale Earnhardt, Jr. – Yep, it’s like beating a dead horse. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. is going to be the most picked fantasy NASCAR driver on Sunday, and for good reason: he’s probably the most talented in the garage when it comes to restrictor plate racing, and–as mentioned before–the Hendrick Chevrolets are very strong this week. When you take into account that he will roll off the grid in 3rd on Sunday, it’s a perfect storm for Junior to be up front all day long. Earnhardt is the defending winner of this race and hasn’t finished worse than 2nd in the Daytona 500 since the 2011 season.
Kevin Harvick – I know it’s been a while since we last saw the cars on track for a points-paying race, but let’s not forget about momentum. Harvick ended the 2014 season on absolute fire and took home the championship as well. Now he’ll be looking to get off on the right foot for defending that championship by winning the Daytona 500 on Sunday. For what it’s worth, Harvick’s crew chief (Rodney Childers) tweeted that he finally has a car that’s capable of winning the Great American Race. Usually crew chiefs like to blow smoke up your ass but Childers tends to be pretty truthful, so I believe him. On that note, I think Harvick is a bit overrated on the plate tracks, but a very fast race car can hide a lack of skill in these races. It’ll be interesting to see if he stays near the front (the #4 Chevrolet rolls off 11th Sunday) or goes and hangs out in the back on Sunday. If Harvick can keep his nose clean, I’m expecting him to be a contender for the win. Let’s just hope him and Logano don’t wreck each other…
Overlooked Daytona Fantasy Gems:
Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. – Somehow only 9% of Yahoo! users have the #17 Ford on their rosters this weekend (as of Friday night). I’m going to go ahead and guess that most fantasy racers aren’t listening to me when I say that Stenhouse is one of the most valuable fantasy picks on restrictor plate tracks. Thus far in his Sprint Cup career, Ricky has been pretty disappointing, but he’s been consistently good on the big super-speedways…and I’m going to keep picking him while he’s hot. Although Ricky did have a bad run here at Daytona last July, his other points-paying starts at this track have all ended with Ricky inside the top 20–and three of the five between 7th and 11th. Looking at Talladega, Stenhouse has never finished worse than 13th in three career Cup starts there. On Sunday, he’ll roll off the grid way back in 32nd, and don’t be surprised if he stays back there: Stenhouse tends to hang out in the back of the pack for most of the races and then charge to the front when it counts. In allocation leagues, I’m all over the #17 this week, even though I’m not a fan overall of Roush Fenway Racing in 2015.
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Daytona Fantasy Picks to Avoid:
Trevor Bayne – I’m still waiting for this kid to prove to me that his Daytona 500 victory wasn’t a fluke. Since that lucky win, Bayne has yet to finish better than 20th in a points-paying race at Daytona. All of those races have been in the #21 Ford with the Wood Brothers, though, so maybe a little better equipment with Roush will help Trevor this weekend. Still, I’m not taking him, and I’ll gladly let other fantasy racers be stuck with the fools gold. At Talladega, it isn’t much better: Bayne was 41st and 32nd in the two races there last season.
Jamie McMurray – Jamie Mac won the 2010 Daytona 500 and has since been considered one of the better restrictor plate racers in the series. Why that is, I’m not sure, because the numbers say something different. There have been nine points-paying races ran here at Daytona since that win and McMurray has just one top 10 finish over that span–back in the 2013 July race. Although there is some potential with picking the #1 Chevrolet (the Ganassi cars do have Hendrick engines), I’m going to stay away from McMurray on Sunday, the main reason being that 46% of Yahoo! users have him on their team, and I’m going to dare to be different.
Danica Patrick – Part of me wants to root for Danica, but I just can’t. How many times has she wrecked this week? I understand that one or two of those incidents weren’t technically her fault, but a wrecked race car is still a wrecked race car. Many fantasy racers are going to take a shot in the dark with Danica this weekend because they think her only value is on these super speedways, but I actually think she’s going to be a decent pick on some of the intermediates this year. As far as allocation leagues like Yahoo!, there’s no way I’m taking Danica on Sunday.
If I had to rank the field…
- Jimmie Johnson
- Dale Earnhardt, Jr.
- Kevin Harvick
- Matt Kenseth
- Joey Logano
