Kevin Harvick won the Busch Pole Qualifying Award and will start in the top position in Sunday’s GEICO 500 (2 p.m. ET on FOX, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) at Talladega Superspeedway. After two 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 10th Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race of 2018.
RJ Kraft’s revised Fantasy Live lineup following practices and the lineup being set:
1: Brad Keselowski
2: Clint Bowyer
3: Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
4: Paul Menard
5: Austin Dillon
Garage: Aric Almirola
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MORE: Fantasy analysis for Talladega | Driver stats | Full lineup | 10-lap averages
Analysis: I’m using Talladega to conserve some uses, while balancing playing some drivers that have fared well there in recent years. Keselowski, Bowyer and Stenhouse all have wins at the 2.66-mile superspeedway, while Menard has been one of the most consistent drivers there in the past three years with an 11.5 average finish. Almirola’s issues in qualifying — he’ll start 40th — haven’t scared me off of him, especially since coming from the back at ‘Dega means little. However, they have made me think that starting him in the garage is the wisest course of action. In his two top-five finishes here last year, he started 22nd and 26th.
The lineup change I did make was a swap of the Dillon brothers. I originally had Ty in my lineup because he owns the best average finish (12.0) among drivers in Sunday’s field at Talladega. However, he seems snakebit this weekend getting caught up in a final practice wreck, having to go to the backup and the No. 13 Chevrolet having some issues on pit road during qualifying. Austin scored two top 10s here in 2016, and he is the winner of the most recent plate race (the Daytona 500; the only other time I’ve used him).
I considered David Ragan but I was a little concerned about having all Fords and watching those cars be on the same strategy during the race. Perhaps, that’s overthinking it. Kurt Busch was also a consideration for me, but I have used him quite a bit thus far (more than Bowyer) and expect to use him some more with how fast SHR has been. I did stack some bonus picks with him, though, based on his solid Talladega numbers in the past three years — 10.8 average finish and he starts second on Sunday.
This race is one of the biggest rolls of the dice due to the unpredictable nature of restrictor-plate racing. Make sure to keep tabs on your garage driver and be ready to make a move if the “Big One” happens before the end of Stage 2.
(Cars to the rear: 1, 13, 19, 31 for backup cars; 9 for unapproved tire change and 10 for unapproved adjustments.)
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