HMS's best a go at 'Dega, but not top Roush drivers (cont'd)

Since the beginning of the 2004 season, Jeff Gordon has spent the most time in the top 10 with 1,027 of a possible 1,704 laps. He's followed by Dale Earnhardt Jr. (952), Jimmie Johnson (888), Kurt Busch (875) and Tony Stewart (847) rounding out the top five. Between them, these five drivers have won six of nine races with Gordon taking the lion's share of four. Earnhardt and Johnson have one apiece. Busch and Stewart are winless at Talladega, but they have come tantalizingly close. Busch has two third-place finishes during that span and Stewart has earned three of his career six runner-ups during the past five years.

Gordon and Johnson set themselves apart from the competition last year by sweeping the first- and second-place spots in both Talladega races and should anchor your team. Both drivers have struggled on the plate tracks in 2008 with only one top-20 apiece, but their overall success outweighs that concern.

Earnhardt is a master of the draft and he has the record to prove as much. In one span of seven races from 2001 through 2004 he won five times and finished second in the other two. While he hasn't had a top-five at Talladega since, he's swept the top 10 on plate tracks this year and it's a matter of time before he battles for the lead on the final lap.

Busch and Stewart are at the very least compelling dark horses this week --especially the driver of the No. 2 Dodge. Before stumbling to a 39th this spring, Busch compiled a seven-race streak of top-10s and with so many different ways to get in trouble at Talladega, a streak of that duration is absolutely amazing. Busch is also attractive because he's struggled this season; that has kept his salary cap low and he's flying well under the radar screen.

Dark Horses

Dark horses this week will come in two breeds: absolute wild cards and drivers running with strong teams that have a knack for plate racing. Fantasy owners can go broke trying to predict the first variety, but it's nice to know they exist in case you get to the final slot on your roster with only a few dollars in your pocket. Drivers like Mike Wallace in a fourth Richard Childress Racing car, Kenny Wallace in Michael Waltrip Racing's No. 00, Mike Skinner in the Red Bull No. 84 or Sterling Marlin in the James Finch No. 09 have a long history of grabbing top-10s for lightly funded or part-time teams.

A more reliable predictor of dark horses, however, might come in the list of drivers with the most laps in the top 10 on plate tracks during the past three years. Busch (with 606 of a possible 1,134 laps), Stewart (565) and Gordon (555) are included among the top five in that shorter duration, but two other names are less obvious. Jamie McMurray has logged 588 laps inside the top 10 and he converted that into a pair of top-fives in the spring of 2006 and 2007. In the second half of this season, the No. 26 team has shown a lot of improvement with three top-10s and six top-20s in the past 10 races. Moreover, in a few of the races in which they scored bad results, they ran well before getting into trouble during the event.

Brian Vickers sits fourth on the chart with 562 laps in the top 10 and he would be much higher if he had not failed to qualify last spring as Red Bull Racing struggled through their inaugural season. His victory in fall 2006 was controversial when he spun Johnson and Earnhardt out of his way on the final lap, but there was no such argument in the spring of that season when he finished third or this spring when he finished fifth.

Red Flag

Greg Biffle and Carl Edwards are two drivers to avoid this week and they have to be as nervous as a cat at a dog show. If they stay out of trouble, there is no doubt that they can run up front, but during the past three years of plate racing Edwards is just as likely to experience crash damage as he is to finish unscathed and Biffle has one of the worst average finishes among all active drivers at Talladega. Edwards' average finish of 19.7 is only 16th best; Biffle's 29.3 is 33rd on the chart.

Kyle Busch is another driver to avoid this week. He surprised us by finishing fourth in the Daytona 500 and we sat in slack-jawed disbelief when he won back-to-back plate races at Talladega in the Aaron's 499 and at Daytona in the Coke Zero 400, but he had momentum on his side in those races. After finishing 28th or worse in the first three Chase races, he certainly does not have momentum now, and his victory this spring was the first time he'd ever cracked the top 10 at Talladega. In fact, in five of his previous six races on this track, he finished outside the top 30 after being slowed or stopped by crash damage. Talladega can smell desperation on a driver.

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