Fantasy: Texas Preview

This week, NASCAR trades 500 laps around the short, flat track for 500 miles on an unrestricted, intermediate speedway. From the slowest track to one of the fastest -- it's enough to give a driver whiplash.

On the short, flat track of Martinsville Speedway, with its paperclip-shaped U-turns, drivers strive to crack the 100 mph mark at the fastest part of the straightaway, and they average speeds well down in the 90s; this week, they will turn laps more than twice as fast. The pole this past November at Texas Motor Speedway was earned by Martin Truex Jr. at 193 mph and change.

One of the most interesting facets of NASCAR is that with a 36-race schedule, this kind of juxtaposition crops up with regularity, which forces these drivers to be among the most well-balanced racers in the world.

Texas is one of the similarly configured, 1.5-mile tracks -- the so called "cookie-cutter" courses -- that includes Atlanta Motor Speedway, Lowe's Motor Speedway, Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Kansas Speedway and Chicagoland Speedway. While each track is certainly unique, the teams that excel on one, often run strong on the others, which is all the fantasy owner really cares about.

The reason for this is simple: The 1.5-mile doglegged and double-doglegged tracks make up 25 percent of the schedule, and if one counts the 2-mile tracks of Michigan International Speedway and Auto Club Speedway, that number swells to 33 percent. Teams are forced to put a lot of focus on running strong on these tracks if they want to contend for the championship.

Fantasy owners will want to concentrate on marquee drivers racing for powerhouse teams, and that is where the majority of points will be earned, but dark horses cannot be overlooked. Because the unrestricted, intermediate speedway schedule is so massive, even lightly funded teams find their way into the top-10 or -15 with some regularity, and with modest salary caps, they are great ways to stretch the budget.

With several of the favorites experiencing problems in the UAW-Dodge 400 at Las Vegas, a couple of long shots paid off big when David Ragan and Travis Kvapil finished seventh and eighth, respectively. Fortunately, dark horses on the "cookie-cutter" tracks often tip their hand in practice, so fantasy owners will want to watch those sessions with interest.

The Favorites

The four strongest "cookie-cutter" drivers -- at least from a statistical standpoint -- all suffered at Las Vegas in the first 1.5-mile contest of the season. Johnson missed the handle so badly that the team turned the race into an extended test session and the No. 48 could barely pull out of the way to let the fast cars pass. Tony Stewart cut a tire and slammed the wall on Lap 108 making him the first to retire in 43rd, while Jeff Gordon and Matt Kenseth crashed six laps from the end of that race while they battled for third. Most of them rebounded at Atlanta. In the Kobalt Tools 500, Stewart finished second, Gordon was fifth and Kenseth was eighth, which makes each of these drivers highly favored on the sister track in Texas.

Second city

Second place is the first loser. Don't remind Matt Kenseth. He has three second-place finishes in the past four Texas races.

• By the Numbers, click here

Kenseth sets himself apart from the rest because of his consistency at Texas. He finished second in both races there last year and also in the spring 2006 race. He was third in the fall 2005 Texas race and the only time he finished worse than third during the past five races, he nevertheless posted a respectable result of 12th, which means his downside is practically nonexistent. Kenseth is motivated to earn a strong finish this week after his bitter disappointment at Martinsville -- a race in which he was even parked for two laps after letting his emotions get the better of him -- and nothing soothes a battered racer like a victory.

Texas is one of only two tracks on which Gordon hasn't won, but he came perilously close last year. He dominated last April's Samsung 500 and clearly had the car to beat until he slapped the wall twice in the closing laps. He got away with the first incident without affecting the handle of the No. 24 Chevy, but the second trip into the SAFER barrier slowed him just enough to allow Jeff Burton, Kenseth and Mark Martin to slip past. On the combined "cookie-cutter" courses, Gordon was the driver to beat. He won at Lowe's in the fall, earned seven top-10s and eight top-15s in nine starts, and would have been perfect in that regard if he had not been collected by a spinning back marker in the Coca-Cola 600.

Hendrick Motorsports has two great opportunities to find Victory Lane this week. Dale Earnhardt Jr. might just be the hottest driver on the circuit, and if not for an accident in which he was an innocent bystander at Fontana, he would likely be the points leader on the back of a perfect record of top-10s. Texas has long been one of his favorite tracks. He won there in his first attempt in 2000 and posted another second-place finish in 2003. He failed to crack the top 10 last year, but this is a different car and the team is extremely comfortable on this type of track.

Long Shots

As one might expect in a Cowboy-oriented state such as Texas, this race is often kind to dark horses. Last year, Juan Montoya ran with the leaders all day before finishing eighth, and his teammate David Stremme also earned a rare top-10. Martin came back from a two-week sabbatical to finish third, and Burton snapped a long winless streak in this race. In 2006, the dark horses of choice were Scott Riggs and Bobby Labonte, both of whom finished among the top 10, so cheaper drivers cannot be ignored.

Fast facts

Race	Samsung 500
Green	2:16 p.m. ET Sunday
TV	FOX, 1:30 p.m. ET
Radio	PRN (Sirius Ch. 28), 2 p.m. ET

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Jamie McMurray entered the Goody's Cool Orange 500 at Martinsville in 36th in the point standings and in desperate need of a good result. He got it with an eighth-place finish that was preceded by a strong run. That gives him a much-needed boost of confidence just in time to come to a track that was kind to him in 2007. Last year, the No. 26 finished fifth in the spring and was ninth in the fall. In fact, this track has always been kind to him and his first four races at Texas have produced three top-10s and a worst result of only 11th.

Brian Vickers is another driver to watch closely, because some of his best runs came on the "cookie-cutter" tracks last year. When he qualified for the races, he was extremely strong, posting a 14th at Texas in the spring and a 10th at Atlanta in the fall. His best showing came at Lowe's in the Coca-Cola 600. Battling a broken power-steering pump, he muscled his Toyota to its first Cup Series top-five, and one can only imagine what he could have done with a car that was not ailing. The No. 83 team has been strong nearly everywhere this year, but there is something special about their power on the unrestricted, intermediate speedways, and Vickers already has a top-10 at Atlanta.

Wait and See

By the numbers, Johnson would seem to be a no-brainer this week. He won four of the nine "cookie-cutter" races last year -- including the fall Texas race -- and has always been at his best on this track type. This year, however, he's not only finished badly at both Las Vegas and Atlanta, he's run just as bad. In addition to the horribly missed setup at LVMS, he was constantly in jeopardy of getting stranded off the lead lap at AMS despite a 13th-place finish. While it's impossible to say with certainty that the team can't reverse their fortunes, his salary cap in most games is hefty enough to make him too risky a proposition this week.

Kurt Busch is another driver who doesn't seem to have what it takes on the similarly configured, 1.5-mile tracks lately. In nine starts last year, he failed to crack the top five a single time and earned only three top-10s. In two races this year, Busch has yet to cross the finish line in the top 10, and with an average result of 17.1 on this track type since the beginning of 2007, he is simply not worth his price tag.