Nextel Cup cars can make four laps around Bristol every 60 seconds. Credit: Autostock

Fantasy Preview: Bristol

NASCAR's remaining three short tracks are each unique, from the little track with delusions of grandeur in Richmond, to the half-mile paperclip Martinsville Speedway that races like a road course, to the high-banked bully of Bristol Motor Speedway. This track is like no other, and it holds a special place in the hearts of fans and racers alike for its non-stop action.

There aren't many cars that make it out of Bristol unscathed. Credit: Autostock

Power Rankings High-banked tracks, last three years No. Driver Avg. 1. Reed Sorenson 5.00 2. Ryan Newman 9.03 3. Clint Bowyer 9.50 4. Matt Kenseth 9.66 5. Kurt Busch 10.28 6. Jimmie Johnson 10.62 7. Jeff Gordon 10.64 8. Greg Biffle 11.03 9. Dale Earnhardt Jr. 12.06 10. Martin Truex Jr. 12.50 11. Elliott Sadler 12.77 12. Denny Hamlin 13.00 13. Tony Stewart 13.49 14. Jeremy Mayfield 15.44 15. Kevin Harvick 16.11 16. Jamie McMurray 16.53 17. Mark Martin 17.26 18. Dale Jarrett 18.91 19. Kyle Busch 19.11 20. Jeff Burton 19.31 21. Sterling Marlin 22.14 22. Bobby Labonte 22.14 23. Michael Waltrip 22.40 24. Chad Chaffin 23.00 25. Kasey Kahne 24.07 26. Kenny Wallace 24.89 27. Terry Labonte 25.00 28. Brian Vickers 25.40 29. Mike Skinner 26.20 30. Travis Kvapil 26.36 31. Dave Blaney 26.40 32. Ken Schrader 27.53 33. Scott Riggs 28.46 34. J.J. Yeley 28.57 35. David Stremme 29.00 36. Carl Edwards 29.04 37. Jeff Green 29.56 38. Robby Gordon 29.94 39. Joe Nemechek 32.94 40. Scott Wimmer 33.54 41. Casey Mears 34.28 42. Kyle Petty 34.38 43. Stanton Barrett 38.83 44. Kevin Lepage 39.54 45. Hermie Sadler 41.48 46. Morgan Shepherd 42.85 47. Brent Sherman 43.33 48. Mike Garvey 47.50 Fantasy ReportMarty, Danielle tell you who is the man to beat at Bristol FedEx PreviewNBC/TNT's Marty Snider previews the action heading to Bristol Sign up for TrackPass now BUY THE NEXTEL i836

Bristol is a momentum track. Drivers must hit their marks, every 15 seconds, lap after lap after lap. Circling this track at 125 miles per hour, a mistake anywhere in the field can swallow up both the leader and the last-place driver. The cars can contend with a little damage, however, and by the end of the race even the winner may have some dented sheet metal.

Because Bristol is a rhythm track, a driver's record on it is important in deciding who will run strong. Luck cannot be quantified, but some drivers have a knack for avoiding trouble on this track.

The favorites

The question before Jeff Gordon at the beginning of the season was, "will this team improve their unrestricted intermediate speedway program?" While that query is being answered in his favor, the focus turns to whether he can sustain his momentum.

The 1.5- and 2-mile speedways bear absolutely no similarities to the short track on which the competitors race this weekend, but strong finishes in his last two starts have restored Gordon's confidence.

Even while he has finished down the grid on this track, the driver of the No. 24 has shown strength, and in the last eight races he has started on the front row seven times. The only time he failed to roll away from the green with a clear view of the track, he started fourth.

When he has an uneventful Bristol race, Gordon finishes near the head of the field. In 26 career starts there, he has recorded five victories and 15 top 10s versus only eight worse than 15th. Of those eight poor finishes, he crashed out of five.

The most recent winner on this track is doing his best to convince fantasy owners that he is the go-to guy on short tracks. Matt Kenseth earned a rare pole last fall under the Bristol lights, dominated the night race, and recorded his second career short track win.

He had been working on that victory for four years, finishing 16th or better in the previous seven races. The No. 17 team is becoming a perennial favorite on the short courses.

Since the beginning of 2004, Kenseth has finished in the top 15 nine times in 12 attempts, and in two of other three, he was 16th at Martinsville in fall 2004 and here at Bristol in spring 2005.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. runs well on tracks where his father once dominated, and Bristol fits that criterion perfectly. His victory here in fall 2004 was the culmination of six strong runs in which he finished a worst of only 16th and logged three top 10s.

Last year, while the No. 8 team struggled on practically everywhere else, they ran well here by finishing fourth in the spring and ninth in the fall.

Darkhorses

Kyle Petty's eighth-place finish at Bristol was followed by another equally strong run at Dover, and the fantasy owner was waiting for this race to roll around to activate him again.

Last week, he was not expected to run particularly strong in light of the fact that it had been nearly a decade since he finished in the top 10 on an unrestricted intermediate speedway, but attrition late in the race rewarded a strong run with a strong finish.

It has been nearly six years since Petty has posted back-to-back top 10s, but that is another streak that could come to an end this weekend.

Kyle Petty

In the first four races of the season, a different freshman has been the rookie of the race. Last week was Reed Sorenson's turn, despite being listed as a driver to avoid in pre-race coverage.

His strong run was aided by a series of unfortunate events that sent several top-five capable cars to the pits in sight of the checkers, and he will be motivated to prove he deserved the position. Like Petty, fantasy owners were waiting for this race to give him the nod.

With no Nextel Cup experience on the high banked tracks, he is in for a bit of culture shock this week, but if he can survive the first feverish laps and settle into a rhythm, he will rely on his Busch experience to find inner peace.

In the support series, Sorenson finished 11th or better in all four high-banked races last year. Three of these finishes were also top fives -- including a second-place finish at Dover in the spring -- and in all four events, he finished on the lead lap.

Underdogs

At Dover, Carl Edwards is the driver with the second-best record of improving during the race among all active competitors. From where he lines up on the starting grid, he moves up seven positions on average, compared to teammate Kenseth's advancement of 7.9.

Carl Edwards

It hasn't helped much, since Edwards' average starting position is merely 35th, giving him a 28th-place average finish. No matter how one skews the numbers for the No. 99, they are not good. He has steadily improved from a 33rd place finish to a best of 24th last fall, but he has never completed the distance of a Bristol race.

In three starts he has been slowed or stopped by crash damage every time, and he threatens to take the Goodys Headache Powder award away from Joe Nemechek (with 10 accidents in his last 19 high-banked starts) and Casey Mears (five accidents in 12 high-banked starts) for the most bummers.

This week it is time for J.J. Yeley to pull over and let his fellow classmates have the limelight. In his single NASCAR Nextel Cup high-banked start last fall at Dover, he rolled off the grid 37th and confirmed that his 29th-place ranking on the average speed charts in practice were an accurate measure of his strength when he finished 25th.

In that race, he was three laps off the pace. His record in the Busch series is not much better. In seven high-banked attempts at Bristol and Dover, the best he could manage was a single 15th-place finish.