Posted on by RJ Kraft

Team Penske’s Ryan Blaney will start from the pole position for Sunday’s TicketGuardian 500 (3:30 p.m. ET on FOX, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Does he merit a spot in your lineup? We’ve dissected the numbers to offer a suggested lineup worthy of your Fantasy Live consideration as you make roster decisions.

PLAY NOW: Set your lineup | How the game works | Tips to set your lineup

Remember that the garage locks at the end of Stage 2. Once the final stage starts, your roster is locked in.

RJ Kraft’s Fantasy Live lineup for race-day at Phoenix:
1. Kyle Busch
2. Kevin Harvick
3. Ryan Blaney
4. Denny Hamlin
5. Chase Elliott
Garage: Brad Keselowski

RELATED: Odds for Phoenix | 10-lap averages from Phoenix | Podcast: Fantasy Fastlane

Analysis: I started this week looking to save the Team Penske drivers for races where the rules package is more pronounced — think 1.5-to-2-mile tracks — but like Special Agent LeRoy Jethro Gibbs’ Rule #51 — sometimes you’re wrong. The Penske group looked too strong in practice and I’d be risking more not playing some of them. That decision puts Blaney and Keselowski in my lineup over William Byron and Aric Almirola. Blaney won the pole and had top-seven 10-lap averages in both Saturday practices. He’s qualified well here in the past and not produced, which is why I am sticking his teammate Keselowski in the garage to guard against that happening again. Keselowski has a good history here and, along with Busch and Harvick, makes up the class of the field here this weekend.

Busch and Harvick are the two best at this track and nothing I’ve seen this weekend has dissuaded me from that thought. Both look good on the 10-lap run and over longer runs.

RELATED: Busch vs. Harvick–a case of anything you can do, I can do better

This is a shorter race in the Cup ranks based on mileage so I am going to play the early track position game and take two drivers starting in the top five with solid Phoenix histories in Hamlin and Elliott. Elliott has two top-three finishes in his last three starts here and Hamlin has five top 10s in his last seven starts here. I didn’t love Elliott’s 10-lap averages, but I like the track position he’ll start with. Among the drivers I debated for my final spots: Almirola, Kurt Busch and Byron.

I’m taking Kyle Busch to win Stage 1 with Harvick winning Stage 2 and Busch winning the race — the winner selection is heavily influenced by my props plays. I took Busch to finish higher than Harvick and want to stay true to that on my race-winner pick in Fantasy Live. But really it’s a toss-up between both of them.

Each week in this space, we’ll also highlight two Props Challenge items for players.

MORE: Play the Props Challenge today

1. Five of the last six winners at ISM Raceway have started outside the top five. Will Sunday’s race winner start outside the top five? I’m saying no on this one, even though as the question says, recent history has shown that the winner is more likely to come from outside the top five. The risk in saying no is you are essentially betting against Kevin Harvick — starting eighth — and at Phoenix that is a tough sell since he has nine wins there. Why am I essentially going against him on this question? It’s because three of the four strongest cars this weekend based on practices — Ryan Blaney, Kyle Busch and Brad Keselowski (Harvick is the other of the four) — will start in the top five. I like the odds that one of those three will win on Sunday.

2. Fresh off a sixth-place result at Las Vegas, does Ricky Stenhouse Jr. finish in the top 10 at ISM Raceway? I’m going no here as well. Stenhouse finished outside the top 10 in all three practices and his 10-lap average times in Saturday’s practices were outside the the top 15. Add in his two finishes outside the top 20 at the 1-mile track last year and five finishes outside the top 20 in his last seven starts here and history suggests another top 10 isn’t in the cards for Stenhouse.

Posted on by Reid Spencer

AVONDALE, Ariz. — During the opening laps of last Sunday’s Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Jimmie Johnson looked like the driver who has won 83 races and a record-tying seven Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series championships.

Johnson’s No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet was running in the top five, suggesting that Johnson and crew chief Kevin Meendering might have a car capable of challenging for the win.

But as Johnson lost positions, the handling of his Chevy got positively evil and revealed a problem Hendrick has to solve to make its cars consistently competitive.

“We were very aggressive with the setup of our car,” Johnson said on Friday afternoon at ISM Raceway before qualifying 15th for Sunday’s TicketGuardian 500 (3:30 p.m. ET on FOX, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). “I think once we took consistent air off the top of it, it just started bouncing and went haywire. That thing was bouncing all over the place once I got to like 15th or 20th on the track.”

MORE: Lineup for Sunday’s race

The challenge is to find a setup that is fast in clean air without being out of control in the dirty air a car encounters mid-pack. At Las Vegas, Johnson finished 19th, the first car one lap down.

“As hard as we try, when the car’s performance is based on over-body downforce, you are never going to change the fact that the leader has better air. I don’t think it matters how big the spoiler is, which throws air up higher and then you’ve got these (front drag) ducts that throws it out wider.

“The way we create downforce is tough. It’s tough to have that consistent downforce in traffic. It’s just the way it is.”

To win a record eighth championship, Johnson and his team will have to master the idiosyncrasies of the new rules package. In the past, the ability to adapt to new challenges has been one of Hendrick’s hallmarks.

“I’ll race whatever they bring,” Johnson said. “I’m here to figure out whatever the rules package is, and I’ve been doing this long enough to have a lot of downforce, no downforce, a lot of power, no power. We have not gotten off to the start that we expected to.

“Atlanta (a 24th-place result), was pretty rough for us. Vegas we had a lot more speed in the car, but when I lost track position as the race wore on, my car was pretty evil to drive. We are learning each and every step. We have been off to a good start here in Phoenix. I know it’s way different than that other package, but we’re learning as we go, and we just have to do a better job and get better.”

Posted on by Staff Report

Joey Logano landed atop the leaderboard in Saturday’s final Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series practice, leading another 1-2 sweep for Team Penske at ISM Raceway in Phoenix.

RELATED: Final practice results | Best 10-lap averages

Logano, last week’s winner at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, topped the 50-minute session with a lap of 137.794 mph in the No. 22 Ford. He was just ahead of teammate Ryan Blaney, who registered a 137.221-mph lap and will start from the pole in Sunday’s TicketGuardian 500 (3:30 p.m. ET, FOX, MRN, SiriusXM) after reigning in Friday’s Busch Pole Qualifying.

Nine-time Phoenix winner Kevin Harvick recorded the third-fastest lap (136.685 mph) in the Stewart-Haas Racing No. 4 Ford. Kyle Busch (136.431) and Aric Almirola (136.322) completed the top five.

The session was slowed at the 11-minute mark for extended clean-up of fluid dropped by the Premium Motorsports No. 15 Chevrolet of Ross Chastain.

Eight teams served 15-minute penalties at the end of final practice for issues in inspection. The Team Penske No. 2 Ford team for Brad Keselowski was docked practice time for failing inspection twice before Friday’s Busch Pole Qualifying. Those troubles resulted in the ejection of a team engineer for the rest of the weekend.

MORE: Officials eject No. 2 team engineer

The other seven teams had time deductions for final practice because they arrived late to inspection:

  • No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing Ford for driver Paul Menard
  • No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet of William Byron
  • No. 32 Go Fas Racing Ford of Corey LaJoie
  • No. 34 Front Row Motorsports Ford of Michael McDowell
  • No. 38 Front Row Motorsports Ford of David Ragan
  • No. 51 Rick Ware Racing Chevrolet of Cody Ware
  • No. 52 Rick Ware Racing Ford of Bayley Curry

Buescher leads the way in Saturday’s early session

Chris Buescher topped the speed charts in the first of two Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series practices on Saturday at ISM Raceway, his No. 37 JTG Daugherty Racing Chevrolet clocking in at 137.973 mph.

MORE: Best 10-lap averages | Practice 2 results

Polesitter Ryan Blaney, who paced opening practice on Friday, was second on the speed charts with a fast lap of 137.915 mph in his No. 12 Ford. Blaney’s Team Penske teammate Brad Keselowski was third-fastest (137.646 mph), while Kyle Larson’s No. 42 Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet ranked fourth at 137.615 mph. ISM Raceway’s most recent winner Kyle Busch rounded out the top five in his No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota (137.594 mph).

Nine-time Phoenix winner Kevin Harvick ranked sixth-fastest on the leaderboard in his No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford.

After their physical altercation during Friday’s qualifying, Daniel Suarez and Michael McDowell met one-on-one and with NASCAR before Saturday’s practice. Suarez’s No. 41 ranked 22nd in practice, while McDowell came up 29th-fastest in the No. 34.

MORE: Suarez on McDowell | McDowell reflects on fight

Posted on by Pat DeCola

AVONDALE, Ariz. – Clown. Two-faced. Head up his rear end.

That’s just a small sampling of terms tossed out there over the years from both parties of one of NASCAR’s longest-running feuds – Kevin Harvick vs. Kyle Busch.

These days? No name calling here. Just nothing but mutual respect.

Arguably NASCAR’s two most talented drivers over the course of their decade and a half of racing against each other, Busch and Harvick have somehow gone from Harvick’s arm extended through Busch’s driver-side window – you know, for punching purposes – at Darlington in 2011, to being wrapped around Busch’s shoulder in the garage area, sharing a laugh just last year.

Kyle Kevin

At some point, Harvick says, that animosity toward each other turned to true appreciation for each other’s talents and skill on the race track.

“As rough as our relationship was to start things off, there’s a mutual respect that we have found over the past several years that have created a healthy competitiveness instead of an unhealthy competitiveness,” Harvick told NASCAR.com Friday at ISM Raceway, site of Sunday’s TicketGuardian 500 (3:30 p.m. ET, FOX, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

“Look, Kyle’s a great race car driver. Kyle and I have really not much in common off the race track, but I have an extreme amount of respect for what he does in the race car and the things that happen on the race track. There isn’t a guy in the garage that I want to beat more than Kyle just because of the fact that if you’ve beat him on the race track, you’ve had a really good day. Racing with him head-to-head is something that I enjoy. Definitely, he wants to beat me, I want to beat him, but I feel like I have a good relationship with Kyle.”

Even last year, the two raced hard for the win at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, culminating in Harvick bumping Busch out of the way in the closing laps en route to the win.

Surely, Busch would be furious after the race, having his shot at holding a giant lobster in Victory Lane clawed away from him by his fiercest rival, right?

“That’s fine; (if) that’s how (he) wants to race, that’s how I’ll race back,” Busch said at the time – an extremely measured response given their history.

MORE: Busch on Harvick’s race-winning move: ‘How you race is how you get raced’

Perhaps it can be attributed to the fact that they’ve each matured, become dads and champions, all in the last six years. Regardless, it’s fascinating to see two of the sport’s top competitors – probably each other’s biggest competitor – go from spewing vitriol at each other in post-race interviews to sparking a healthy relationship solely based on mutual respect on the race track.

“There was certainly a time where Harvick and I both would agree that if neither of us showed up at the race track anymore that we would totally be OK with that,” Busch said Friday. “Now it’s kind of resurfaced a little bit differently where I feel as though we feel like when we get to the race track we know we would much rather be able to beat each other and we’ve done it way more respectfully over the course of the last … I don’t know, 2014, since then. I don’t know if that was just his move to SHR and the relationship that I had with Tony (Stewart) and Tony kind of telling Kevin, ‘Hey, give him some slack,’ or whatever, but it’s definitely come more from his side than my side as far as the friendliness I guess you could say.

“It’s nice to be able to have that relationship with guys in the garage area. You don’t have to be friends with them, but you do have to know that you have to respect them and you do have to know that you have to have an opportunity to go out there and race door handle to door handle or bumper to bumper and know that you’re not going to get wrecked. Kevin and I have that going right now and hopefully we can keep that going that way and there are some others out there that could certainly learn a few things.”

RELATED: Busch vs. Harvick: Anything you can do, I can do better

As fate would have it, given their dominance and success at Phoenix — they combined to sweep the track last year — Busch and Harvick enter the weekend with the best odds to win Sunday’s Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race at an identical 7-2 apiece.

It wouldn’t be surprising for the checkered flag to fall with either the No. 4 of Harvick or No. 18 of Busch leading the way, but don’t expect any fireworks in the desert between them if the racing is hard down to the wire — perhaps just a respectful tip of the helmet and an, “I’ll get you next week.”

Posted on by Reid Spencer

AVONDALE, Ariz. – Denny Hamlin hit a high draw with a 7 iron from 178 yards, and the ball never left the flag.

“The number was perfect, the distance was perfect, and I hit it perfect,” Hamlin said after Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series practice Friday at ISM Raceway. “That one was pure all the way.”

When the ball disappeared into the cup on the second hole at Whisper Rock Golf Club on Thursday, Hamlin had the second hole-in-one of his life.

“Yeah, it was awesome,” he said. “I hadn’t had one since I was a 25 handicap, and it was 15 years ago. The first one was just luck. I didn’t hit it very good. I just luckily hit the pin, but this one was true the whole way.”

“I remember us talking to it in the air, saying, ‘Wow, this is close.'”

RELATED: Phoenix starting lineup

You’d think Hamlin would have kept the scorecard to frame and display after the round. Instead, he tore it up. Hamlin was so giddy from the ace that the rest of the round was eminently forgettable. What he shot for 18 holes remains a secret.

“I refuse to give that information up, because I tore the card up as soon as it was over,” Hamlin said. “I had a ‘7’ after it, I’ll be honest. It was a par-5, and I was not focused one bit because of the hole-in-one that just happened.”

“I didn’t want to keep the card or frame it, because that was one of the worst rounds I had all week out here.”

Afterwards, Hamlin treated golfers in the clubhouse to drinks in true hole-in-one tradition. On Friday, he was hoping the ace was a good omen for Sunday’s TicketGuardian 500 at ISM Raceway (3:30 p.m. ET on FOX, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

PHOTOS: All-time winners at Phoenix 

“That’s the plan,” Hamlin said. “It’s hard to believe you can have a bad weekend after starting it off like that.”

Hamlin has a formidable record at Phoenix, with an average starting position of 11.0 and an average finish of 11.6. His only victory at the one-mile track in the Sonoran Desert came in 2012, but he has posted 11 top-fives and 15 top-10s in 27 starts.

He will start the race from the third place in the order.

“We’ve had good success here,” Hamlin said. “We won here in ’12. We continually run here pretty well. Definitely had a winning car just a few races ago here at this race track.

“Certainly, it’s a track I’ve got a good feel for, knowing what I need. It’s just a matter of knowing whether you can get it all done in such a short amount of time during practices.”

Posted on by Staff Report

Daniel Suarez and Michael McDowell got into a physical altercation following the first round of Friday’s Busch Pole qualifying session for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series at ISM Raceway.

RELATED: Suarez: ‘Lack of respect’ | McDowell: ‘He tried to crash us’

Following the scuffle, drivers were quick to react on social media, including Chase Elliott, Ryan Blaney and Bubba Wallace. See their thoughts on what went down as things got heated in the Phoenix desert.

Posted on by Pat DeCola

AVONDALE, Ariz. – Temperatures were uncharacteristically in the mid-60s in the desert Friday afternoon, but things still heated up at ISM Raceway.

Daniel Suarez and Michael McDowell got physical during Busch Pole Qualifying, shoving each other on pit road with the Stewart-Haas Racing driver forcefully taking down his fellow Ford stablemate after McDowell initiated contact.

The disagreement spurned from an on-track dispute where Suarez was unable to get past the No.  34 of McDowell in the first round of qualifying. The SHR driver said he felt McDowell deliberately didn’t allow him to run a full, unimpeded lap — resulting in his worst starting spot (28th) of the season. McDowell will start right next to him in 27th.

RELATED: Drivers react to incident | Blaney wins pole position

Following the first round of qualifying, Suarez immediately walked over to confront McDowell, who was just exiting his car on pit road. The two talked briefly before McDowell shoved Suarez and the scuffle was underway.

“He was in my way in the corner of (Turns) 1 and 2 and I assumed he would get out of my way in Turn 3 and 4 and he didn’t,” Suarez told reporters following the fracas. “He was in my way for the entire second lap and he messed up my opening of the third lap. So, he pretty much messed up my whole qualifying. …

“I’m the kind of driver that I’m going to give a lot of respect to you, always, if you give me respect back. If you don’t give me respect, I’m going to go kick your ass.”

McDowell, minutes after the fisticuffs, was back to his jovial self, grinning and saying there isn’t much to it all.

“It was kind of chaotic out there. I’d be upset, too. I messed up his lap but then he tried to crash us,” said the Front Row Motorsports driver. “I made a mistake, an honest mistake. Everybody makes mistakes. It’s just part of it. … It’s not how we wanted it to go. It hurt us as well.

“When you mess with somebody’s lap I understand they’re frustrated. But when you try to hurt somebody and damage hundreds of thousands of dollars of race cars, that takes it to a whole other level.”

Despite the fiery incident, there’s a bit of comedy to cap it off.

“We were at a hockey game last night,” McDowell said. “Don’t read too much into it. It’s emotions, man. Just the way it is.

“What happened on the race track wasn’t acceptable in my eyes. So, that’s it.”

Posted on by Reid Spencer

AVONDALE, Ariz. – Ryan Blaney ended the day the way he started it — with the fastest car at ISM Raceway.

After leading opening Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series practice with the quickest lap of the day (141.716 mph), Blaney put his No. 12 Team Penske Ford on the pole for Sunday’s TicketGuardian 500 at the one-mile track.

Blaney covered the distance in 25.480 seconds (141.287 mph) in the final round of knockout qualifying to outpace Chase Elliott (140.045 mph) by a comfortable .203 seconds.

The Busch Pole Award was Blaney’s first of the season, his second at Phoenix and the six of his career, putting Blaney in good position to follow teammates Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano to Victory Lane, after their respective wins at Atlanta (Feb. 24) and Las Vegas (Mar. 3).

RELATED: Starting lineup | Full weekend schedule for Phoenix

“We’ve just got to clean some stuff up,” said Blaney, who had a fast car at both Atlanta and Las Vegas, only to be done in by pit road snafus. “While it’s nice to have Penske winning, I’m selfish — I want to win. It’s good to have our cars really fast, and our finishes definitely don’t reflect how we’ve been running.

“We’ve been really fast at all three places so far. If you keep bringing fast cars to the race track, ultimately, it’ll work out for you one of these times. I want to be part of the winning club here in the Penske group. It’s nice to have the whole team really fast right now. We fired out of the box really good this year, so hopefully we can just keep it going.”

Daytona 500 winner Denny Hamlin qualified third at 140.007 mph, followed by Joe Gibbs racing teammate Kyle Busch (139.855 mph), Keselowski, Alex Bowman, William Byron, nine-time winner Kevin Harvick, Martin Truex Jr., Erik Jones, Daniel Hemric, and Logano.

Elliott had mixed feelings about his front-row starting position.

“I hate qualifying second,” Elliott said. “We’ve qualified second out here last fall and then this one. But I guess he (Blaney) isn’t a bad one to qualify second to. But I look forward to Sunday.”

“I think our Hooters Camaro at least has a good place to start, and we can have a good pit selection. That’s important. We have a long race ahead. But I’d really like to get a pole outside of a (super)speedway track. We’ll try again next week.”

The first round of qualifying ended with a fracas between Ford drivers Michael McDowell and Daniel Suárez, neither whom made the top 24. Suarez accused McDowell of holding up the No. 41 Stewart-Haas Racing Mustang on his crucial hot lap at the end of the session.

Suárez returned the favor by trying to wreck McDowell’s No. 34 Front Row Racing Ford after the fact.

After exiting his car, Suárez stepped over pit wall and advanced toward McDowell who made a preemptive strike and shoved Suárez. The two grappled, and Suárez body-slammed McDowell to the pavement before the two combatants were separated.

RELATED: Suarez, McDowell get physical on pit road

“I was just trying to get in his way like he did to me,” Suárez said. “I’m the kind of driver that I’m going to give a lot of respect to you always, if you give me respect back. If you don’t give me respect, I’m going to go kick your ass.”

McDowell said that, with most drivers waiting to post laps until time was running out on the first round, heavy traffic was inevitable.

“It was just miscommunication on the race track,” McDowell said. “We all kind of waited till the end, and then you just had a lot of traffic. Just unfortunate. He was upset that I held him up on his good lap, and then he tried to crash us. I just didn’t appreciate it.

“It’s heat of the moment stuff. Just racing. Shorter practice session. Shorter qualifying. Getting late going through tech. The intensity ramps up. It’s all a part of it.”

Coincidentally, McDowell (27th) and Suárez (28th) will start side-by-side from the 14th row on Sunday.

Posted on by Staff Report

NASCAR officials ejected a crewmember for the Team Penske No. 2 Ford team Friday after the car failed pre-qualifying inspection twice at ISM Raceway.

Engineer Brandon “Shaggy” Pope, part of the team’s 12-person road crew for driver Brad Keselowski, was removed from the team’s roster for the remainder of the race weekend at the 1-mile Phoenix oval. Pope is in his fourth season as a team engineer for Team Penske.

RELATED: Full Phoenix schedule

Keselowski was second-fastest in opening practice for Sunday’s TicketGuardian 500 (3:30 p.m. ET, FOX, MRN, SiriusXM), the fourth race of the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season. His speed placed him just behind teammate Ryan Blaney, who topped the board in the No. 12 Ford.

Keselowski has already contributed to Team Penske’s quick start to the season with a victory at Atlanta Motor Speedway. He’s seeking his first win in 20 Phoenix starts in Sunday’s 312-lapper.