Fantasy: Richmond

Race sponsor Crown Royal has awarded one lucky fan naming rights to this week's event, the Crown Royal Presents the Dan Lowry 400, which is very appropriate in light of the popularity of this track.

More than 150,000 fans filled the stands last week at Talladega Superspeedway, and while a high-speed chess match on that track may draw a big crowd, it is a nightmare to handicap. Only four of the top-10 finishers in that race have consistently run strong this season, with the winner, Kyle Busch, posting five top-10s in the first eight races, third-place Denny Hamlin earning five top-10s in his past six attempts, ninth-place Clint Bowyer entering the weekend with a five-race top-10 streak and 10th-place Dale Earnhardt Jr. finishing 12th or better in all but one race.

Conversely, the other six top-10 finishers had amassed only seven top-10s prior to the dropping of the green flag over the Aaron's 499, and second-place Juan Montoya earned his first top-10 of the season. That will be a little consolation to fantasy owners who took a beating in the points last week.

Return to Racing

This week, drivers control their own fate on what might possibly be NASCAR's perfect track -- Richmond International Raceway. At only .75 of a mile in length, it's a short track that ensures competitors remain in contact with one another throughout the race, but with wide sweeping corners and a doglegged frontstretch, it races a lot like an unrestricted, intermediate speedway.

Relatively flat banking makes Martinsville Speedway a good comparative, but drivers who excel on the lightning quick, similarly configured 1.5-mile tracks also perform strong. Like many of the short, flat tracks, Richmond rewards rhythm and last year, six drivers swept the top 10 in both races, including Jimmie Johnson (who won both events), Jeff Gordon (fourth in both races) and Kevin Harvick (seventh in both races). That consistency will hopefully make this race a little easier to handicap than last week's wild-card event in Talladega, and allow fantasy owners to recoup some of their losses.

The Favorites

Harvick has been perfect at Richmond during the past three years, with a victory and a sweep of the top 10 that has netted him an average finish of 5.5. When he started that streak with a fifth-place result in the spring of 2005, fantasy owners might have been a little surprised. In his first eight attempts on this track, he earned only two top-10s, but on the other hand, he'd finished outside the top 20 only twice, which gave him and the team good notes from which to work. Now, Richard Childress Racing has momentum on its side, and the dominance of that organization is going to continue for some while.

At the beginning of the season, many experts expected a battle between Hendrick Motorsports and Roush Fenway Racing. Instead, the class of the field in most events so far has been either RCR or Joe Gibbs Racing, and a surprising contender for the points lead has been Kyle Busch. He is currently the hottest commodity in any game, with four victories in the Nationwide and Cup series combined during the past month. In the past few weeks, he's won in the support division on the lightening-fast, similarly configured 1.5-mile Texas Motor Speedway, the short, flat Phoenix International Raceway and the exotic road course of Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez. Last week's Cup victory on the restrictor-plate superspeedway makes him the best-rounded driver on your roster, and it appears he can do no wrong. That was also his record at Richmond until this past fall. In his first five races on this track, he swept the top five and finished second twice.

To win this week, however, he's going to have to outrun teammate Hamlin. Hailing from Chesterfield, Va., this is the home track for the driver of the No. 11 Toyota, and he's already proven he can win in front of his fans. Four weeks ago, he took the checkers in first at Martinsville and he's swept the top five since. In fact, he has only one finish worse than 17th all season long, which suggests that if he misses Victory Lane this week, it won't be by much.

The Contenders

There can only be just so many favorites in a given week, but it's hard to call the following drivers dark horses because there is a strong likelihood they could battle for the lead.

RCR has placed at least two of its drivers in the top 15 in every race so far this season and on four occasions they have swept that mark. They have all finished in the top 10 twice, and fantasy owners will do well to remember the 1-2-3 finish on the high-banked short track of Bristol Motor Speedway. As a group, they have an average finish of about 10th for the season in 27 combined starts, and there are plenty of reasons to recommend both Bowyer and Jeff Burton. The No. 07 team is riding a six-race top-10 streak, while the No. 31 team hasn't finished outside the top 15 in the past 15 races stretching back to last year. If you are looking for a more traditional dark horse, Scott Wimmer will roll out a fourth RCR car this weekend, and so long as they don't use the race for a Research and Development session, he's going to outperform his salary cap.

It's beginning to sound like a broken record, but the next best place for Dale Earnhardt Jr. to break out of his two-year winless streak is the next track on the circuit. This team has been the leading HMS entry on most occasions this season, and the only time they have failed to finish in the top 12 was when they were collected in an accident of someone else's making at Auto Club Speedway. Earnhardt has three victories on this track, and they have all come in the spring. In fact, the most recent trophy he put on his mantelpiece came from this track in 2006, but since that was two years ago, it's probably getting a little dusty.

Two other drivers are worth mentioning this week, even though they are less certain to finish in the top 10. Johnny Sauter and Ken Schrader are both driving for teams outside the top 35 in owner points, and this is their opportunity to look like heroes. Sauter will race the No. 70 for the second time this season, and after finishing fifth with this same team this past fall, he's got the setup notes and machinery to help them make up some ground in the points. Schrader will fill in for the injured Dario Franchitti in the No. 40 Chip Ganassi Racing Dodge. That will mark the 10th different owner he's raced for during his career, and this is very likely the best equipment he's been in since leaving Hendrick Motorsports.

Caution

Fantasy owners should continue to approach Jeff Gordon with caution. While it's certainly true that he finished fourth in both races last year, this track has eluded him in the recent past. Before last year's success, the No. 24 team had a four-race streak of results 30th or worse and most of those disappointments were the result of their seriously missing the setup. With the way Gordon has struggled to find a good handle on his car this season and his astronomical salary cap, he is best left in the garage until the team breaks out of its funk.

Martin Truex Jr. has gotten progressively stronger at Richmond, but he does not look like he's capable of battling for a top-10 just yet. In his rookie season, Truex finished in the 40s for both races on this track, which made last year's 28th in the spring and 15th in the fall a step in the right direction, but with so many good options at the top of the order, he can be left on the sideline for the moment.