Fantasy Sports Outlook

NASCAR wrap-up, Yahoo! Fantasy NASCAR recap

You can get a good Weekend Wrap for the Richmond race over at NASCAR Bloggers FT Digest with articles from, Do You NASCAR!, Rev’Jim’s RantsnRaves and Racedriven.com

Tim from Do You NASCAR! has a great recap and rates the Richmond race.

The race restarted, and Earnhardt and Kyle Busch battled for the lead. Earnhardt - who hadn’t won a race in two years - took the high side of the track, while Busch drove around the bottom. The two cars were running virtually neck and neck, and just when Earnhardt Nation thought their hopes were about to come true - the heartbreak kicked in. The two cars just sort of met in the middle of the track, and Busch sent Junior spinning with only 3 laps left to bring out the final caution of the race.

Time for a recap on how the drivers scored in the Yahoo! Fantasy NASCAR game. In case you were wondering only 4.2% of the Yahoo players had selected Clint Bowyer out of Group A. The top pick in the group was Jimmie Johnson (32 pts) with 41.62%.

In my Thursday post I recommended three drivers from group A, Jeff Burton (70 pts), Denny Hamlin (74 pts) and Kevin Harvick (76 pts). The top scores in group A, Clint Bowyer with 100 pts, Tony Stewart at 84 pts, and Carl Edwards with 78 pts. I went with Denny Hamlin and for 381 laps it looked like a great pick.

In group B my recommends were Kyle Busch (88 pts), Mark Martin (91 pts), Greg Biffle (64 pts), and Ryan Newman (80 pts). Martin, Busch and Newman had 3 of the top 4 scores on the night in group B. Martin Truex Jr. with 85 pts finished with the 3rd best score in the group. I went with Busch and Martin for my group B drivers. Good points but I’d rather have seen a Dale Jr. win.

In group C, which is always a hard group for me to select a driver, I recommended Brian Vickers (36 pts), Travis Kvapil (60 pts, tops in group C) and Sterling Marlin (42 pts). Marlin was a long shot, but I thought maybe his experience at the track would give him an edge out of the group C drivers. He did finish with the sixth highest point total in the group. I went with Travis Kvapil for only the second time this season.

What this meant for me was that in the three groups I’m in, Addict Fantasy Sports, From the Marbles and SpeedZone Racing I finished with the high score for the week in each group! Whoop! 313 points on the week.

This week it’s on to Darlington Raceway for the Dodge Challenger 500.

Pre-Draft Roundup

Some quick hits before the draft starts…“Front Row Joe” Nemechek wins pole for Talladega. Qualifying from the 45th spot Nemechek turned in a lap time of 187.386 to overtake Stewart (186.896)…Gotta love the San Francisco Giants right now, Jonathan Sanchez finished last night’s game with this line in last night’s 3-1 over Aaron Harang and the Reds:

Giants are getting the hits when needed and the pitching has been even better than Giants fans hoped it would be.

NFL Draft Hangouts, not a fan of ESPN so I’ll be hanging out over at New Era Scouting and NFL Draft Scout. Don’t forget about NFL.com also.

Draft Cheat Sheets: NFL Draft Scout has a one page pdf you can download and you can still grab the Draft guide over at New Era Scouting.

Yahoo! Fantasy NASCAR: Talladega Superspeedway

Taking a look at this weekend’s race at Talladega Superspeedway, there’s a lot of good story lines happening this week.

Is this the week that Dale Earnhardt Jr. rolls into victory lane? Was the weeks worth of “are you leaving JGR to start your own team?” enough of a distraction that Tony Stewart won’t find his way into victory lane? Jeff Gordon is looking for his third straight Talladega win, but has an average finish of 18.9 in the first eight races this season.

My early picks for this weekend,

Group A

• Jeff Gordon
• Tony Stewart
• Jimmie Johnson

Group B

• Dale Earnhardt Jr.
• Kyle Busch
• David Gilliand
• Bobby Labonte

Group C

• Travis Kvapil
• Brian Vickers
• Sam Hornish Jr.

Here’s a look at the user picks from earlier today at Yahoo! racing.

This table shows the top ten drivers by average finish at Talladega Superspeedway.

This table shows top ten drivers by average finish at tracks similar to Talladega (Superspeedways)

Full drivers list for Talladega Superspeedway
Full drivers list for upcoming track type
XML courtesy of onebadwheel.com