Fantasy NASCAR Asterisk Mark Report – Michigan

Every week in NASCAR there’s drivers who have problems in the race and walk away with an asterisk mark result. Understanding misleading finishes and knowing how good drivers truly were can help give you the edge on your competition. Many fantasy racers just look at results and assume that’s how good drivers were. This post explains who had a misleading result this spring at Michigan, and how good they truly were.

Kyle Larson – Michigan has been a great track for Kyle Larson. This spring he had a good car but finished an asterisk mark 28th. “Strength Wise”, I thought he was a top five contender but his race wasn’t incident free. He started in 26th but didn’t have much difficulty racing his way to the front. When Stage #1 ended he finished 2nd. On lap 85 is when trouble struck. At that time he was running in 8th but spun into the grass which dropped him a lap down dooming him to his poor result. In the three Michigan races prior to that Larson raced his way to victory lane.

Erik Jones – Erik Jones was a top ten good this spring at Michigan but finished 15th. In the race he qualified 8th but started in the rear of the field after failing inspection just prior to the start. He was able to drive up through the field pretty smoothly. He finished 15th in Stage #1 and 9th in Stage #2. During Stage #1 it should be noted on lap 25 during the competition caution he was caught speeding on pit road. For all intents and purposes Stage #2 is a great place to mark the end of the race since maybe around 5 more laps were run under green. I’m speculating he had a slow final pit stop or a bad restart which led to his misleading result.