Road course practices give fantasy players a better idea than oval tracks
Better late than never.
For the second week in a row, weather threatened on-track activities, but NASCAR showed dogged determination in getting the track dry and ready for practice. In order to maximize practice, they sent cars out onto the track with a few damp spots, but that only served to give the drivers a feel for how to handle in loose conditions.
On most tracks, top speeds are not particularly helpful because they are usually set in qualification trim that is widely different from the conditions in which the cars will race. That variance is less dramatic on road courses than ovals, so fantasy owners can learn quite a bit from the speed charts.
Martin Truex Jr. surprised the field by winning the Toyota / Save Mart 350 at Sonoma this June, but he proved that his victory was not a fluke. In the first practice session on Friday, he posted the fastest speed by a wide margin. In fact, he was nearly two miles per hour faster than the second-place driver, who happened to be road racing expert Marcos Ambrose and any time a driver can beat him in any session, it must feel great. Truex was also the only driver in that session to run 10 or more consecutive laps and his average speed of 123.293 mph was better than 19 drivers’ fastest lap in the early afternoon.
Carl Edwards is not necessarily the first driver who comes to mind on road courses, but he was fast in both practice sessions. He posted the third-best time in the first session and topped the charts in final practice. His speed of 128.397 mph was the fastest lap of the day and since he will qualify in the final group on Saturday morning, he is a good bet to start on the front row.
It would have been nice to see a little more speed out of Max Papis in Tony Stewart’s No. 14. His top speed in the first session was good enough for only 27th on the chart and he is going to be among the early qualifiers on Saturday. He picked up a little speed in the final session, but so did everyone else and he dropped to 30th on the speed chart. The hidden good news in his practice times is that if he qualifies poorly, he is liable to earn place-differential points in the NASCAR Fantasy Live game, but a top-10 finish could be difficult to achieve.
The road racing specialists became relevant again at Sonoma and they could be a great way to stretch players’ salary caps on Sunday. Making his Sprint Cup debut, Owen Kelly was the best of the ringers with the 20th-fastest lap of 126.415 mph in Happy Hour. With a bargain basement price tag of $7.50 in the Fantasy Live game, he could be hard to pass up.
Ron Fellows in the No. 33 was not far behind with a speed of 125.700 mph, but Boris Said seemed to struggle and posted only the 35th-fastest time in Happy Hour at 123.417 mph. Alex Kennedy and Victor Gonzalez, Jr. were in the same range of speed as Said, so it is difficult to recommend starting them for the Cheez-it 355 at the Glen.
MORE:
|
|
WATCH: Preview Show:
|
WATCH: This week’s
|
WATCH: What Drives
|
|---|
breaks right leg
