Kyle Busch, the most recent Bristol winner, won the Busch Pole Qualifying Award and will start in the top position in Sunday’s Food City 500 (1 p.m. ET on FOX, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) at Bristol Motor Speedway. After three practice sessions for this race, we’ve dissected the numbers and 10-lap averages to offer a suggested lineup worthy of your Fantasy Live consideration as you go to make roster decisions for the eighth Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race of 2018.
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RJ Kraft’s revised Fantasy Live lineup following practices and the lineup being set:
1: Kyle Busch
2: Erik Jones
3: Joey Logano
4: Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
5: Chase Elliott
Garage: Kurt Busch
Analysis: From my original lineup, I have taken Clint Bowyer and Denny Hamlin out and dropped in Kyle Busch and Chase Elliott. I had every intention of saving a Kyle Busch usage and stacking my bonus picks with him, but the results are hard to ignore. He’s on the pole, he topped the 10-lap board in final practice and he is the most recent winner here. I’ll worry about how to make the usage work down the line. Elliott was in the top four for 10-lap averages in both of Saturday’s practice sessions. He was also second on the overall speed charts in final practice and has two straight top-seven finishes here in the spring race. I haven’t used Elliott much, but I like taking that chance here. Bowyer suffered a little damage in final practice and should be fine; I just like the speed Elliott has shown.
Logano, Stenhouse and Jones were part of my original lineup and nothing I have seen in practices has convinced me to make a change. I also have not used these drivers that much thus far. If anything, Jones topping the 10-lap board in second practice reinforced my belief to stay with him. My one wrinkle is that I am sticking with Kurt Busch despite him moving to the rear (from his second-place starting spot) after a late wreck in final practice. The SHR driver has five wins here and has been fast this weekend — second in 10-lap averages in the final session. I will move him to the garage and evaluate where he is at towards the end of Stage 2 and make a decision from there.