Wednesday, March 09, 2016

Fantasy Nascar Picks (PHX)

Welcome to TimersSports

Las Vegas's recap: Vegas was a really great week for fantasy players (or should have been), if you went with the top names in the sport. Outside of Matt Kenseth and Carl Edwards, almost all the top names finished up front on Sunday. Not to mention, there were also quality sleepers like Austin Dillon, Ryan Blaney and Ricky Stenhouse Jr who also provided strong runs to fantasy players. I thought the race was entertaining honestly. A good mix of long run flag runs and restarts led to an a very good race in my personal opinion. My only complaint would be the disappointing run by Brian Vickers who had rear gears issue around the halfway point. Otherwise my fantasy teams did pretty well over the weekend. Cannot complain about that too much.

Look Ahead to Phoenix: We are headed to Phoenix this weekend for the 4th race of the season. Phoenix was repaved around the 2011 season and remains a track-position cablier type of racetrack. You are not going to see an driver blaze through the field from back of the pack, without some help on pit road. It can be done without a few moves on pit road, but it may take awhile. Phoenix is an 1-mile short-flat racetrack, so wouldn't bank on the previous two races telling who will be fast and who won't. Personally I am not going to get fancy (I never do) and just going to be a straight shooter.


Yahoo -

A:

Start - Kevin Harvick (8)

Bench - Kurt Busch (9)

Reasons - I will take Harvick over Busch, even though I am sure several people might gamble and hope for a Kurt Busch win. I don't think that will happen. History is on Harvick side and I personally think that Harvick will be the man to beat come raceday.

B:

Start - Carl Edwards (9), Martin Truex Jr (8)

Bench - Austin Dillon (7), Ryan Newman (9)

Reasons - I personally didn't really want to use another Truex start, and was hoping to save him for some of the upcoming 1.5 mile racetracks. However my hand is pretty much forced here. Dillon haven't looked too many, but I get the feeling he will be better in upcoming races. Newman just have looked off to me all weekend long. I am sure he will be fine, but I will wait on the RCR cars until their bread and butter intermediate racetracks.

C:

Start - Ryan Blaney (9)

Bench - Ty Dillon (8)

Reasons - While I really wanted to keep using the Tony Stewart replacements, I thought Blaney looked much better than Dillon did. I was hoping Dillon could provide a top 20 finish, but I get the strong feeling he won't be able to give us such type finish based on practice so far. While I am sure there will be a lot of fantasy players still playing the use Tony Stewart replacements strategy for Phoenix. I personally only believe it is beatifical , IF you can get least top 20 finishes from the replacements. Dillon doesn't look like he can. So the strategy really comes pointless to me.

Fantasy Live - 4,41,18,14 and 98

Sleeper - Stenhouse Jr

Winner - Harvick

Twitter - @MattAleza