Fantasy NASCAR Asterisk Mark Report – Darlington

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 last year at Darlington, and how good they truly were.

Martin Truex Jr. – Last year at Darlington, Martin Truex Jr. had a phenomenal car and was better than his 8th place result. In the race he won Stage #1, won Stage #2, earned the 2nd best driver rating, had a 3rd place average running position, led 76 laps but unfortunately his race wasn’t incident free. While he was leading with 3 laps to go he had a flat tire and got into the wall. That led to him making an unexpected pit stop so it’s really quite amazing he finished 8th with his late adversity. If Truex Jr. didn’t have a tire going down at the end he was going to finish in the top two, at worst.

Kyle Larson – Last year at Darlington, Kyle Larson had one of the best cars but finished an asterisk mark 14th. In the last quarter of the race he had some sort of parts issue that hampered his level of competitiveness. In the race he earned the 4th best driver rating, had a 5th place average running position, tied for leading a race high 124 laps, finished 2nd in Stage #1 and 4th in Stage #2. Up until he had problems it looked like he had top five potential.

Brad Keselowski -Brad Keselowski had a strong car last year at Darlington and was easily top ten good, but finished a misleading 15th. Unfortunately his race wasn’t incident free because in the last quarter of the event he got into the wall and after that he didn’t run as well. In the race he finished 5th in Stage #1, 6th in Stage #2, had a 9th place average running position and earned the 9th best driver rating.