2018 Fantasy Nascar Preview: Ryan Newman

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Ryan Newman didn't exactly have a great season in 2017, but it wasn't terrible. In last offseason's preview, I went on the record saying that Newman would have a bounce back season from 2016. Statistically, the 2016 was one of the worst seasons of his cup career. So in 2017, he did very much have a good year. He posted a win with 7 Top 5 finishes and 13 top 10 finishes. Not quite as consistent as those impressive 2014 and 2015 seasons. But still, he was definitely right in the ballpark. The most important part about his 2017 season? He scored RCR first win since the 2011 season. That's huge! Of course, it was on a strategy, but a win is a win though.

In 2018, 31 team need to stabilize some consistency. That how Newman usually get his fantasy value. He won't go out there and contend for wins on a weekly basis. He just not that guy or have that equipment. When he get on a run of consistent top 5 or top 10-like finishes, that is the best time to take advantage. Most of the time, he will finish in the low-teens or middle-teens. You want to find that window of opportunity, when he go on a little streak inside the top 10. Mark my words, he will go on that streak, too.

Intermediate tracks will be interesting for Newman. He will usually contend for finishes in the low to middle teens, but not exactly with a super high ceiling or upside though. He will from time to time finish in the top 10 though. Maybe a top 5 or two, as well. I wouldn't constantly expect it though. His top 3 intermediate tracks are Darlington, Michigan and Charlotte. I had always thought that Michigan was one of his best tracks and he loves Michigan. He always come to Michigan and perform very well. Before and after the repave, his numbers has remained very good. In 14 straight Michigan races, he has finished 18th or better. In 9 of those 14 races, he has finished 15th or better. Since joining RCR (last 8 races), he has finished 15th or better in the last 5 of 8 races. In 3 of his last 5 races overall, he has finished 11th or better at Michigan.

 At Darlington and Charlotte, I would like to think these are very good example of tracks that Newman is well above average on. His numbers are very strong at both tracks. Consistently over the past couple seasons, he has finished in the top 10 on a regular basis. These are two tracks that you can possible target him at, where he will have a shot at finishing more toward the front. At Darlington, he is an elite driver. In 13 of his 19 career starts, he has finished in the top 10 with 11.7 career average finish. That's a large simple size overall. In his last 5 seasons at Darlington, he has finished 4 of those 5 races inside the top 10. Over the last two seasons, he has finished 7th and 8th. At Charlotte, he has been just as good, maybe even a little better. Since the 2013 season (10 races span), he has posted 7 Top 10 finishes. In his last three seasons (6 races - since 2014), he's posted 4 top 10 finishes in those races. In his last 6 races at Charlotte, he has finishes of 40th, 9th, 4th, 10th, 15th, 6th and 7th. Prior to his 40th place finish in his most recent race here, he had a really strong stench of finishes.

Martinsville and Bristol are both very good tracks for Ryan Newman. In fact, I would rank them both among his top 5 tracks. I would say that Martinsville is the better of the two racetracks. I love him at Martinsville. He always has ran well at this short track. In his last 5 races at Martinsville, he has posted 4 Top 14 finishes. In those 5 races, he has posted 3 top 10 finishes during that span as well. His finishes are as followed: 14th, 8th, 16th, 10th and 7th. Since joining RCR in 2014 (8 races), he has finished in the top 10 in 50% of his starts at Martinsville. One of his best top 10 percentage tracks since joining RCR. At Bristol, he's very solid overall. He has only one ''poor'' finish since joining RCR in 2014. That came when he finished 28th back in 2016. Over his last 6 races at Bristol, he has posted 4 Top 10 finishes during that span. In his last 8 races at Bristol, he has finished 7 of 8 in the top 16. In 6 of his last 7 races, Newman has finished 14th or better. You see the trend lately with Newman at both tracks? Very consistent. Us fantasy nascar players just love that. It make our jobs a lot easier!

Plate tracks are where Newman will get no respect, but he's usually have a habit of finishing in the top half of a field at both Talladega and Daytona. In his last 10 races at Daytona, he has finished 5 of 10 races inside the top 11. With 6 o those 10 races ending in the top 18 overall. In 3 of his last 5 races at Daytona, he has finished 11th or better. At Talladega, he is pretty consistent as well. In his last 7 races at Talladega, he has finished 12th or better at this track. Over his last 11 races at Talladega, he has finished 6 times in the top 12. Including 5 top 10 finishes during that span.

The shorter flats has been very good overall to him overall. At Richmond, he is solid. In his last 9 races at RIR, he has compiled 6 top 11 finishes. During that span, he has posted 5 top 10 finishes during those 9 races, too. Since the 2011 season, he has posted top 10 finishes in over half of his starts at Richmond. During that span, he also has finished in the top 15 over 75% of the time. He's just that damn good here! At Phoenix (now known as ISM - I think that is stupid, but whatever), he is a former two-time winner. And he has been consistent there for awhile, too. In his last 9 races at ISM, he has posted 7 Top 12 finishes. Before the repave, I thought he was even better. From 2010 to 2012, he posted 5 Top 5 finishes during a 6-race span. Then there is New Hampshire! Another track that is a former winner on. He is not the same driver he was early in his career though. At New Hampshire, he is kinda inconsistent for the most part. In his last 8 races at New Hampshire, he has finished 7 of 8 races in the top 20. During that span, he has posted 3 Top 10 finishes. Problem is? His last three races all has ended outside of the top 12. His last three finishes are 13th, 27th and 20th.

I think Pocono is one of Ryan's best tracks and I don't think enough people are aware of this! He had a pair of poor finishes in 2015, where he finished 23rd and 39th. In the June's race, he wrecked with AJ Dinger late in the event, while running competitively in the teens. He followed up with 23rd place finish. Outside of 2015? He haven't finished worse than 14th since June 2008. That's 17 races, if you are keeping track at home! In 7 of his last 11 races at Pocono, he has compiled finishes in the top 12. In half of his starts since the 2011 season, Newman has finished in the top 10.

At Indy, he was average at best for years. And then, he finished 7th in 2012. After that, he broke out in the 2013 season. He started on the pole in 2013 and dominated. He start along side the heavy favorite for the event in Jimmie Johnson. He shocked everyone when he won the pole. It was even more impressive that he stood in front for long as he did. He eventually got passed by Johnson. How he did he win the race though? Genius pit strategy launched into the lead and held off a charging Jimmie Johnson late. Over his last 6 races here, he has finished 11th or better in five of those races. In half of those races, Newman has finished in the top 7.

Road courses are good for Newman and sometimes he get overlooked for some reason. In his last 5 races at Sonoma, he has compiled 5 straight top 15 finishes. With 3 o those 5 races ending in the top 11. At start of his career at Sonoma, he was a top 10 machine. In middle of his career, he started to really struggle. And now lately, he is starting to return back to form. At Watkins Glenn, he doesn't offer a lot of upside overall. But he is consistent though. In 6 of his last 8 races at Watkins Glenn, he has posted finishes in the top 16. Over the last three seasons at Watkins Glenn, he has finishes of 25th, 16th and 15th. Obviously when looking at the numbers, he is showing a lot more promise at Sonoma than Watkins Glen. But don't be fooled though, he is still plenty good at Watkins Glen. Just not as appealing.

**All stats are from DriverAverages.com

Twitter - @JeffNathans18

2018 Fantasy Nascar Preview: Chase Elliott

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Chase Elliott enter his 3rd season as a driver and it is a very important one, in my opinion. He has been hyped as one of the top young drivers in the sport and it is time for him to breakout a win soon. He has been very impressive in his first two seasons. And he has been close to wins on number of occasions, but just cannot quite close the deal. Since his debut, there has been multiple first time winners. Including Ryan Blaney, Austin Dillon, Christ Buescher, Ricky Stenhouse (two wins) and Kyle Larson (4 wins). So there has been 5 first-time winners since Elliott has debut in the Cup series. That has to be eating away at Chase Elliott. Question is will that add pressure to his shoulder and motivate him?

You can expect him to be at his best on the intermediate tracks. It is hard to pick just a couple good ones for Elliott. He has found success in some form across the board, in my opinion. But If I had to pick just three tracks, then I would go with Michigan (2-mile intermediate track), Dover (1-mile intermediate track) and Chicago (1.5 mile intermediate track)  as his top 3 intermediate tracks. Texas and Atlanta are also great tracks for him. Dover may be his best track in terms of pure results. At least among the tracks with at least 4 starts on. In 4 career starts, Chase Elliott has finished 5th or better in every start at Dover. In his rookie's season, he had a pair of 3rd place finish. Then he followed it up with finishes of 5th and 2nd. In last October's race, he was awesome. I thought he had the race won at one point. He led 138 laps on his way to an 2nd place finish to race winner Kyle Busch.

I would say that Michigan is the most logical place for him to score his first win. As he has more 2nd place finishes here then anywhere else. In his first three starts, he finished 2nd place. In June 2016, he could had won the race. But a bad late restart cost him a win to race winner Joey Logano. In August 2016, he had the race won. He beat Kyle Larson off pit road during late round of pit stops. Then got through traffic a lot better than the 42. Then there was a caution and Larson got away from him on a late restart. He finished 2nd once again. The follow race at Michigan, he wasn't nearly as good but he was in contention again. He just couldn't catch Kyle Larson on the final restart though. In August 2017, he had a shot to win again. He was the 2nd or 3rd driver on fresh tires on a late restart, but couldn't take advantage of it. He finished 8th in that event. If Elliott and his team can put it altogether, then he can easily go to victory lane at Michigan. I think this is where he will find one of his wins at!

Between Chicago, Texas and Atlanta it is hard to pick which one is top racetrack, but I would say it is Chicago though. His numbers at Chicago are very impressive in his limited starts. In two career starts, he has 11.0 average start but impressive 2.5 average with 40+ laps in each race. He has not only been running well at Chicago, but he has been a legit racer winner contender. He has finished in the top 10 in every race at Chicago, Texas and Atlanta so far his cup career. I think that just speaks how impressive that Chase Elliott has been so far in his first two seasons at this level!

The flats tracks will be just a okay spot for Chase Elliott, as his first two seasons he has been valuable to inconsistency in his results. The shorter flats has been up and down for Elliott overall. I think Phoenix is his best track of the three by far. In 4 career starts, he haven't finished worse than 12th. That 12th place finish was his best race of his young career here. He had one of the best cars in the event. He led a race-high 106 laps, before fading in latter part of the race. In November 2017, he finished 2nd place and led 34 laps on his way to that runner-up finish. In 2016, he had a pair of top 10 finishes.

New Hampshire is a good track for him, but not great track. In his first career start, he had an incident with teammate Alex Bowman that derailed his solid top 10 day. He finished 34th and multiple laps down. In his three starts since then, he has compiled three straight finishes between 11th-13th. So in four career starts at New Hampshire, he does not have a single top 10 finish. Very close to be breaking into the top 10 though. And then there's Richmond! In 5 career starts, he has only one finish in the top 10 and that was last September. He finished 10th in last September's race. Prior to that, he had finishes of 16th, 12th, 19th and 24th. Richmond has been a disappointment overall, as I high hopes for him at this place. As he found a good amount of success in the lower series. So logically this was a place I circled for him, but so far the results haven't been there.

Elliott made his debut at Pocono in June 2016 at the cup level and really impressed a lot of people. As he led a race-high 51 laps on his way to 4th place finish. He followed that up with 33rd place finish in the August's race. That was a very strange race with the fog and Chris Buescher scoring his first career victory. However, Elliott had a good top 10 run going for that event. Until he wrecked with Joey Logano in middle of the event. Elliott finished 4 laps down. In 2017, he was just top 10 good in both races. He had finishes of 8th and 10th. That pretty much where he deserved to finish, too. At Indy, he has made three career starts. And all three races has been below average I would say. He has a career-high of 15th place finish in 2016. He wasn't nothing special for that race, either. He was probably at best a middle-pack driver. His 73.8 driver rating definitely backs that up. He was running in the top 10, before his engine went south in 2017. It started to go downhill after maybe 20 laps. And finally let go around lap 40 or so. He has some work to do on these flat tracks!

Martinsville and Bristol are the next two tracks that I would like to look at. Both are really good tracks for him and Martinsville may just be one of his best tracks. He was impressive at this place in 2017. He finished 3rd in the spring, after leading 20 laps. Then he followed it up with 23rd place finish. But he was awesome in that race. He led 123 laps and was leading with just a few laps to go. Then him and Denny Hamlin had an incident. This spark major drama between then and going forward in the Nascar playoffs. Between fans and drivers alike. If he can repeat those performances in 2018, then he will be in victory lane most likely at Martinsville. At Bristol, he has been very good. He has gotten better finishes in the spring races than the summer races. He has finishes of 4th and 7th in the last two spring races. In the summer races? 15th and 18th. Good news? He led laps in both summer races, if that means anything to you.

Road courses will be another area where I say that Elliott need to make some improvement on in 2018! He isn't bad, but he isn't great though. At Watkins Glen, he has made two starts and finished 13th in both races. In 2017, he was better than being 13th place driver. I say he was top 10 good for the event and he even led 9 laps towards the end. But I think that had something to do with how pit strategy went, too. At Sonoma, he has made two starts with career-high of 8th place. That came in last season's race but I don't recall him being that good for the event. He was more of a low to middle teen-type driver overall. Young drivers usually struggle more at Sonoma. You can expect more of the same in 2018 from Elliott. I don't think he will cotend for wins at either road courses in 2018, but it will be nice if he can make more gains though.

Plate tracks has been a strong suit for Elliott, but he haven't had much luck on his side. In the opening race of the 2017 season, he almost won the Daytona 500. If he had a little more fuel, I think he would had won the Daytona 500. He was that strong at the end, I don't think anyone would had overpowered him. He finished 14th in that race. In his three other career starts, he has finishes of 22nd, 39th and 32nd. He's led laps in 2 of those 3 races though. Things just haven't worked out well for him at Daytona. How has he done at Talladega? Pretty good, I would say overall. In 4 career starts, he has posted 3 finishes of 16th or better. In 2016, he posted finishes of 12th and 5th. He led laps in both races. In 2017, things didn't go quite as well. He had a pair of DNFs with finishes of 16th and 30th.

Chase Elliott should have a great 2018 season overall. He will be at his best by far on the intermediate tracks. The flat tracks will be inconsistent spots for Elliott, but he will have his fair share of opportunities, too. Phoenix would be his top flat track, while the likes of Richmond and Indy would be his worst tracks. When it comes to the short tracks of Martinsville and Bristol, you can expect him to very strong. I think he can challenge for win at both tracks. More so at Martinsville than Bristol though. As for the plate tracks and road courses you can expect him to have mix results. The plate tracks he seems to run better than he finishes. Not exactly promising as a fantasy player, but he has great potential. The road courses are getting better for Elliott as he enter year number 3. However, I am not buying that he is ready to be considered as a legit option.

I am not very interested if Elliott can get to victory lane in 2018. There's several tracks that I think it can happen on and most of them are intermediate tracks. This is the most common type of track in Nascar right now and he's very good at most of them. If I had to hand pick a track for him to go to victory lane at, I would pick either Dover or Michigan.

***All stats are from DriverAverages.com

Twitter - @JeffNathans18

2018 Fantasy Nascar Preview: Denny Hamlin

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Denny Hamlin had pretty much the year that I expected him to have. He started out slow (like in each of the previous couple seasons), but he started to roll as we enter the month of July. That when things really started to click (a lot like in 2016) and he really started to knock off the top 5 finishes. In second half of the season, there wasn't many better drivers. The question is will that trend continue into 2018? I would like to say that he will be strong out of the gate, but I cannot. This is a pattern for Hamlin, where he doesn't get rolling into middle of the season. I am not sure why, but it just is. Until, he can prove this theory to be false, I think we have to keep going under this assumption!

Obviously, the intermediate tracks will be a major strength for Denny Hamlin and the 11 team in 2018! His best intermediate tracks? Chicago, Darlington and Homestead. These tracks will always stand out on his resume and he should be very strong at all three places once again in 2018. We only visit them each once per year, but Denny usually make them count! His best track? It's Darlington and it is not very close. From a career point of view, his numbers are stupid good off the charts. In 12 career starts, he holds impressive 5.83 average finish! In his first 5 starts, he posted 4 top 10 finishes in 5 races with a pair of top 2 finishes. Since then? He have only gotten better! In his last 7 starts at this place, he has compiled 6 Top 7 finishes in 7 starts. In 5 of his last 6 starts, Hamlin has finished in the top 4. In just his last three starts, he has finishes of 1st, 4th and 3rd.

Homestead is another very good track for him! In his last 12 starts, he has only finished once outside of the top 14. In his last 5 starts at this track, he has compiled 5 straight finishes in the top 10. Including finishes of 9th, 9th, 10th, 7th and 1st. In those last 12 starts, he has posted 9 Top 10 finishes during that span. On top of that, he has posted 2 wins during that 12-race span. His first win was back in 2009 and the last win came in 2013. He led 71 laps and 72 laps. Chicago is another very good track for him, especially lately. He started off his career pretty rocky at Chicago. As he finished 16th or worse in 5 of his first 8 races at Chicago. In his last 4 races at this place? His finishes consists of 4th, 6th, 1st and 6th. In his last 9 races, he has posted 6 Top 8 finishes. He had finishes of 8th and 5th in 2009 and 2010.

Shorter flats has always been a very strong type of track for Denny Hamlin and there's no reason to believe that will change now. Aside from Martinsville and Darlington, I would have to say that Richmond is one of Denny's top tracks. He has amazing record here and been the best driver in the series over the past couple seasons. In his last 5 starts at this track, he has compiled 5 straight finishes of 6th or better. Prior to that (from September 2012 to April 2015), he had no finishes better than 18th. That was just a rough path for Hamlin as it is clear that he is back on track now. Majority of those races were during tough times for Hamlin. Back in spring 2013 (he injured his back) and wasn't himself in 2013 or 2014. It wasn't until latter part of 2015 that Hamlin actually started to run again like the Old Denny Hamlin. So I get why, he had some struggles at certain places during those seasons. Prior to that, he posted 4 Top 5 finishes in 6-race span from September 2009 - April 2012.

Phoenix is another great track for Denny Hamlin and has a great record here. In his most recent race here, he led 193 laps before he faded in the event. Then as he faded to 4th place with a woeful racecar, he got into it with Chase Elliott. And that basically just hurried along the process for Hamlin's day that went from great to bad to worse. Even if that Elliott's situation didn't occur, I still think he would had missed the championship cutoff. Hell, I think he still end up in the wall, even if Elliott wasn't aggressive with him. Prior to that, he has had very good results. In his last 6 races (prior to last fall's race), he had compiled 5 finishes in the top 10. In 4 of those 5 races, he finished 7th or better. In 7 of the last 12 races overall, he has finished 8th or better. I also would like to point out that two of those five ''bad'' results were in November 2013 and March 2014. I usually just disregard finishes during that time period of his career. After those two finishes, he has gotten back on track for the most part.

Then there is New Hampshire. I would say it is a good track for him, but he does have a history of being inconsistent at times. In his last 6 races, he has finished 15th or better in all six races. In his last 9 races, he has finished 15th or better in 8 of those races. During that 9-race span, he has only 4 top 10 finishes and 2 top 5 finishes. He won back in 2016 at this track. In his first 11 starts at this track, he posted 6 top 6 finishes. In his last 12 races here, he has just 4 such finishes. Even though, he all 4 finishes ended in 2nd or better. In 24 career starts, he has a career average finish of 10.1 with 3 wins and 14 Top 10 finishes.

Hamlin isn't quite as good on the larger flats, but he is better than I think most people realize though. At Indy, he has been a stud of late. In his last 6 races here, he has compiled 4 finishes in the top 6. He finished 17th in last season's race and finished 17th. If you need a refresher on the 2017 Brickyard's race, it wasn't basically Daytona on steroids. 14 cautions with pretty much every car in the field aside from the top 3 or 4 drivers being involved in wrecks. Hamlin wrecked with Menard on the final caution, but Hamlin had issues on that final restart. He had a flat tire and was really just a disaster waiting to happen. Prior to finishing 17th at Indy in 2017, he had 3 straight top 5 finishes from 2014 to 2016. Then there's Pocono, he has always been very good here. In 24 career starts, he has managed 4 career wins. In his first 10 career starts, he posted 4 wins and 7 Top 5 finishes. He was the master here to start his career and now the playing field is a lot more even. But he still getting a lot of good results though. In his last 8 races, he has compiled 6 finishes of 12th or better. Including 5 of those 8 races ending in the top 10. Currently, he has finished 14th or better in 4 straight races at Pocono. His lone bad finish since start June 2014 is 22nd place in August 2015.

Martinsville and Bristol are the next two tracks that we are gonna look at! He is obviously very good at Martinsville, I would say that is known for being one of the best drivers in the series here. He is a 5-timer winner at this track and his history is impressive overall. In 5 of his last 7 races at Martinsville, he has finished 8th or better. In 11 of his last 16 races overall, he has finished 8th or better. During that 16-race span, he has compiled 4 wins. His last win coming back in March 2015. He has a lot more luck in the fall races though. Since 2013 season, he has finished 8th or better in every race here. His last three fall's race finishes consists of 7th, 3rd and 3rd. You don't need all of these numbers to know that Hamlin is a stud at Martinsville. You knew this already!

Bristol is a good track for him, but like any driver out there, he have some inconsistent numbers. He is very good at this place though. In his last 5 races at this track, he ha compiled 4 finishes in the top 10. Overall 3 of those 5 races has ended in 3rd. What does all three races have in common? They all happened during the August's race. His last three August's race: 3rd, 3rd and 3rd. His last August's race? 3rd, 3rd, 3rd, 40th, 28th, 1st and 7th. So 5 of his last 7 August races has ended in the top 7. In his last 13 races overall at Bristol, he has only posted 7 Top 10 finishes. So 5 of 7 has came in the August's race. Pretty easy to figure out where his better finish could come between the two dates.

Road courses for number of seasons where considered a major weakness for Denny Hamlin. From 2010 to 2015 (at both road courses), he posted JUST 2 Top 20 finishes during those 12 races. In the past two seasons? He has 4 finishes in the top 4. In each of the last two seasons, he has finished in the top 4 every single time. He won at Watkins Glen in 2016, after leading 10 laps. He finished 4th in 2017. At Sonoma, he finished 2nd at Sonoma in 2016. He could have won that race, if he didn't overdrive a turn on the final lap. I also feel like he didn't want to be a dickhead to Tony Stewart in his final season. He could have easily take the #14 car out and the win all in one. But he didn't. In 2017, he finished 4th. He has led 44 laps in the last two seasons at Sonoma. That is the most in the series. Among drivers with at least 20 laps led at Sonoma, there are only 3 other active drivers. Stewart and Edwards are currently out of the sport. Only Kevin Harvick, Martin Truex Jr and AJ Dinger has led over 20 laps at Sonoma in past two seasons.

Plate tracks are great for Hamlin, but I think a lot of people will forget that after a down year on the plate tracks in 2017. He finished 17th and 24th at Daytona in 2017. In his last three races at Daytona, he does NOT have a finish better than 17th. In his 5 previous races (from February 2014 to February 2016), he compiled 5 straight finishes of 6th or better. During that span, he posted 3 straight top 4 finishes. He has been a bit more stable at Talladega lately. In 5 of his last 8 races at Talladega, he has finished 11th or better. Including 3 straight top 11 finishes at Talladega. I personally would trust him a little more in the spring races though. In his last 4 spring races at Talladega, he has compiled finishes of 11th, 31st, 9th and 1st. In the fall races? 3rd,6th, 37th and 18th. So the roles have basically reversed lately. He use to be better in the spring races in 2014 and 2015. But in 2016 and 2016, he has been better in the fall race. Only Denny Hamlin could pull that off!

Alright folks, I think it is time to wrap this thing up! Hamlin will probably win a couple races in 2018 and fair share of his success will most likely come in the summer and fall months. For whatever reason, he has struggled to perform well and to get finish early in the season. I don't know why and I personally don't care. Long as this trend continue, it makes my job a lot easier. Of course, if he comes running out of the gate, then I have a entire fuckery on my hands. Us fantasy nascar folks like things to stay consistent. Knowing Denny, he will throw a curve ball to us and win a couple races before the All-star race. Who know, but we do know where he will be his strong at though. The shorter flats and intermediate tracks. This has been where Joe Gibbs Racing seems to have the biggest edge on everyone else. I am not ready to trust Hamlin on the road courses yet, but he is making it really hard not to. Especially after the numbers he has posted in the last two seasons. The plate tracks he has thrown us for a loop for years. He was terrible for years until 2014 and then looked unstoppable. For our sake, I hope he get back to be a consistent top 5 threat at both Daytona and Talladega.

I don't really have a lot more to say about Hamlin. He will get his wins and bunch of top 10 finishes. Hamlin is really starting to come back into his own as a driver after a couple rough seasons in 2013 and 2014. I think this could be his season, where he goes out and finally put it all together. What do you think? I think anything possible, if you put enough time and effort into it!

**All stats are from DriverAverages.com

Twitter - @JeffNathans18

2018 Fantasy Nascar Preview: Ryan Blaney

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Ryan Blaney will make the transition from Wood Brothers to Penske, but I don't think it will be much of a difference for him. As he was basically getting Penske equipment in the 21 for the past two seaons anyhow. But now obviously he will get even better stuff, since he is directly in a Penske car. I think Ryan Blaney is among the top 3 when it comes to the best young drivers in the sport.

Intermediate tracks has been his biggest strength over the past couple seasons, as most of us probably would have guessed. It is pretty easy to figure out his best three tracks, too. His top three intermediate stand out from the other tracks. From pure stats point of view, his best tracks would be Chicago, Las Vegas and Kansas. These tracks have been very kind to him overall. I would add Texas to that list as well, as he has been strong there, too. I would say that I trust him the most at Kansas though. In 5 career starts at Kansas, he has finished in the top 7 in 4 of 5 races. In his last four starts at this track, he has compiled 3 top 5 finishes. In his last four races, he has finishes of 3rd, 4th, 14th and 5th. He finished 7th back in October 2015 in his first start behind the #21 car at Kansas. He has really good numbers at Kansas and he has more than enough starts under his belt.

Las Vegas and Chicago are also very good tracks for him, too. Las Vegas has been very good for him. He finished just 19th in his first career start at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. In his last two starts? 7th and 6th. He ran in the top 10 for much of the event in both races as well. I love seeing that from a young driver. It is one thing to finish up front, but it is another to perform in the top 10. Blaney did both of those things well. At Chicago, he has only made two starts at. But he has made them count though. He finished 4th in his first career race there in 2016. He got helped with a late caution that really put him that position to gamble for a top 5 finish. In last season's race, he ended up finishing 11th. At Texas, he has been very good lately. In his last three starts at this track, he has finished 12th or better in all three races. In 2017, he was very strong. He dominated at Texas in the spring race. He led a race-high 148 laps, before fading in the last stage of the race. In the fall's race, he was strong and finished 6th. He had a top 10 good race for the event and finished in the area that he should have. Pretty solid rebound at this track, after having no finishes better than 29th in his first three starts.

Shorter flats will be a pretty good type of track for Blaney in 2018, I think. He has been very good at two of these tracks over the past few seasons. Phoenix and New Hampshire clearly stands out of the three shorter flats. New Hampshire has been very good to him so far in his cup career. In five career starts, he has compiled 3 finishes in the top 12. In his last four starts, he has finishes of 9th, 19th, 12th and 11th. He haven't made a lot of starts at New Hampshire, but he have found a decent amount of success overall though. At Phoenix, he has two type of finishes so far in his career. In 2016, he has finishes of 8th and 10th in his first two career starts. In 2017, he started on the front row in both races. Problem? He finished 17th and 23rd in those races. He led 11 laps from the pole, on his way to 17th place finish in last November's race. He wasn't super competitive or anything in the top 10, after the fist run of the race. He was hovering just inside the top 10 or just outside of the top 10 for much of the event after that.

Then there is Richmond, by far his worst shorter flat track. In 4 career starts, he haven't finished 18th or worse in every start. His best finish is 18th in his most recent race there. In his previous three starts, he has compiled finishes of 36th, 39th and 28th in those three races. With only four career starts, there isn't a lot that we can really say about him. As he could easily turn it around at Richmond in 2018. But with that said, there is nothing says he will either. With that said, you would have to think his upside is near the top 10 with how talented he is. Realistically? Probably somewhere in the low teen or maybe at worst the middle-teens. With his career-best 18th, I would say that he can only go up from here.

Pocono is another solid flat track for Ryan Blaney! He finished 30th in his last start here, but it was a very good year in 2017 for him at Pocono. As he was competitive at this place in June and went to victory lane for the first time in his career. In his first three career starts at Pocono, he has compiled finishes of 11th, 10th and 1st. In last August's race, he had a strong top  10 race going. But he made contact with both Johnson and Jones during the second stage. That ended his bid for going back-to-back at Pocono. At Indy, he is much better than his numbers show. He finished 12th in his first career here. In his second start, he had a tough day. He finished 36th, after being in an accident. He got in a wreck with several others during a late restart. In last season's race, he was competitive for much of the race. He finished in 3rd in both of the first two stages. He didn't luck into those stage finishes, either. He constantly ran top 5 for most of the day. Then he got involved in a wreck late that pretty much took him out of contention. That Indy race was crazy though. It had a record 14 cautions, so the wrecking was unavoidable. That how it goes sometimes, you know?

Martinsville and Bristol are the next two tracks that I would like to look at! Bristol has been a up and down track for Blaney when it comes to getting the finishes. He has ran well here in the past two seasons, but he haven't always gotten the finishes. In 2 of his last three starts, he has finished outside of the 30. In the first Bristol race in 2017, he had power steering issues that caused him to finish outside of the top 30. He does have two finishes in the top 11 in past 4 races here though. He only has made 5 stars at Bristol, so it is hard to say what to make of him here. He loves Bristol though. So I will give him the benefit of the doubt for now. How about Martinsville? He is better than I think most people realized. He finished 19th in his first two starts at this track. Then he followed it up with a pair of really solid performances in 2017. He qualified in the top 10 in both races and he finished 8th in October 2017 race. In the spring (April) race? He finished 25th. But he was much better than that for the event. He was involved in two wrecks just after the halfway point of the race. He had to pit multiple times and ended up going multiple laps down. Don't be fooled, he was very fast in the early going. He drove up to the top 5 and could had something for them, if things played out differently.

Road courses should be considered a weak spot for Ryan Blaney as he does not have much experience on them yet. Not to say that he don't have a few good runs on them, but I am not ready to really trust him on them though. At Watkins Glen, he have finishes of 8th and 19th. In last season's race, he ran very well and finished 8th. He was probably top 10 good for the event. In 2016, he really struggled here and finished 19th place. He wasn't much better than that, either. At Sonoma, I think things will be tougher for him. I view that as the more challenging track overall. He finished 9th in his second career start at Sonoma. That came in 2017. He finished 23rd in 2016 race. I am not ready to trust him on the road courses, but he definitely got better in year number 2

Plate tracks will be a strength for Blaney in 2018. He is a really good driver on the plate tracks for such a young driver. Even if he doesn't always get to finish out the races at the front. At Talladega, he has shown great potential. In 3 of his last 6 races at Talladega, he has finished 11th or better. In 4 of his last 6 races at Talladega, he has finished 18th or better. He know how to finish well at Talladega, but what I love that he know how to run well, too. At Daytona, he has only made 5 career starts. And his results are pretty much down the middle. He has two top 14 finishes and three finishes outside of the top 18. In last season's Daytona 500, he finished 2nd.

***All stats are from DriverAverages.com

Twitter - @JeffNathans18

2018 Fantasy Nascar Prview: Brad Keselowski

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Brad Keselowski had a very good 2017 season, he made the Nascar playoffs and got into the championship race at Homestead. But I don't think he ever was a ''true'' championship contender. Of the four drivers in the championship hunt, I would considered him as the weak link. When looking at the season as a whole, more often than not he was between the 4th and 6th best driver. I am not saying he didn't deserve to be in the championship, but it was pretty clear he was missing a step when it came to possibly taking the championship home!

Keselowski is a pretty well-rounded driver for the most part, but intermediate tracks remain his strong suit though. Penske was down in 2017, but it didn't stop Keselowski from being one of the most consistent drivers in the series, either. He posted 3 wins with 16 Top 5 finishes and 21 Top 10 finishes as well to his credit. On the intermediate tracks, he was strong. How did he fair on the bread and butter 1.5 milers? Quite well, actually. In 11 races, he posted 7 finishes of 6th or better. Including a win back at Atlanta. He followed that up top 5 finishes at Las Vegas and Kansas in the incoming months. Of course middle of the season was a bit more rocky, as he had a few DNFs at both Charlotte and Kentucky. At end of the year, he got things rolling once again though. He had 3 Top 7 finishes in his final 5 races on this type of track during the playoffs.

I think Kentucky is his best 1.5 mile track and he would make a very strong case as his best track on the schedule. He has been very good here throughout his career and that success started before Kentucky was at the cup level. In 7 career starts (all since 2011), he has finishes of 7th or better in 5 of those races. Since the 2012 season, Keselowski has 3 wins during that 6-race stench. This is with 2 DNFs, too. A really good thing for Keselowski in 2018? His wins has came in even years. He posted wins in 2012, 2014 and 2016. He should be due for another win in 2018, if the trend holds true!

Las Vegas and Chicago are considered as his next two best tracks on the schedule, in my personal opinion. I love him at both tracks, but Las Vegas really stands out to me. Over the past 5 seasons at Vegas, he has compiled 4 Top 5 finishes. His worst finish is 7th back in 2015. Like with Kentucky, he have found the most success on even years. He won in 2014 and 2016. He might be due for another win in 2018 at Las Vegas. Then there's Chicago. When looking at career point of view, this is considered his best racetrack. He has only made 9 career starts here, but he have made them all count though. Since the 2011 season (7 races ago), he has compiled 7 straight finishes of 8th or better. Once again, he has found the most success on even years. Over the past 3 even seasons (2012, 2014 and 2016), Keselowski has finishes of 1st (2012), 1st (2014) and 5th (2016). He finished 6th last year at Chicago. If the trend holds up, he should get back into the top 5 and maybe more.

The next type of track that I would like to look at is the flats tracks! I think he's really good at both the larger and shorter flats, but he tend to have a few bad results here and there though. Let's look at the shorter flats first! Richmond has been very good over the recent seasons here and have posted 7 Top 11 finishes in his last 8 races. In his last 5 races, he has compiled 3 finishes of 8th or better. When comparing the spring races to the fall races, he is better in the fall (or summer race - whatever you call it) races. As he has finished 11th or better in 3 straight seasons now. Including finishes of 2nd and 8th in 2 of those three seasons.

New Hampshire is probably best shorter flat racetrack when looking at the numbers in recent seasons. In his last 8 races at New Hampshire, he has compiled 6 finishes of 9th or better. And in all 8 races, he has finished 15th or better. Digging deeper into the data pool, he has very impressive. Over his last 13 races, he haven't finished worse than 15th. In fact, he has finished 9th or better in 10 of the last 13 races at New Hampshire. Including 9 of the last 13 races in 7th or better. Then there's Phoenix, I would have to say that this is his worst shorter flat. He's actually pretty good here overall, just not as good as the other two that I have listed above. Over the past 8 races, he has finished 9th or better in 5 of those races. However, he haven't done that well over the past two seasons here though As he has posted finishes of 16th, 14th, 29th and 5th. While not leading a single lap. From 2012 to 2015, he did not finish worse than 11th and only twice worse than 6th.

Now let's move onto the larger flats of Indy and Pocono. Both of these tracks has been pretty solid tracks for Keselowski lately and certainly should keep up the good work in 2018. Let's look at Indy first. He scored his first top 5 finish in 2017 at Indy. But it was the third straight season, where he led laps at Indy though. In his last four races, he has compiled 3 finishes of 12th or better. In his last 7 starts, he has posted 5 finishes of 12th or better. And 4 finishes of 10th or better. In his last 7 races, he has led in 5 different races. Despite only posting one top 5 finish.

Martinsville and Bristol are the next two tracks that I would like to look at. I think Martinsville is one of Keselowski's best tracks and he never get enough credit for it. In his last 11 races here, he has compiled 8 finishes of 6th or better. In his last 6 races here, Keselowski has compiled 5 finishes of 5th or better. At Martinsville, he was very good in 2017. He led 100+ laps and finished 4th and 1st in two races during 2017. In 3 of his last 5 Martinsville races, he has led at least 100 laps. Okay let's move onto the next track of Bristol. And it haven't been a very friendly place in terms of good finishes for Bristol. In 7 of his last 9 races, he has finished 14th or worse. In 4 of his last 6 races, he has finished 29th or worse. Including finishes of 29th and 34th in 2017.

Road courses are always an interesting place and Keselowski always seem to make things interesting, too. Watkins Glen is his better road course and I don't think it is very close at all. He has led in three straight seasons at Watkins Glen and has finishes of 7th and 3rd in 2 of the last 3 races. In his last 7 career starts here, he has compiled 5 finishes of 7th or better. In those 5 races, he has 4 finishes of 3rd or better. He last finished 3rd or better in 2016. In last season's race, he finished 15th. He was much better than that, but he ran out of fuel though. At Sonoma, he scored his first top 10 finish since the 2011 season. He finished 3rd in last season's race and that was his first career top 5 finish at Sonoma. However, that was his first finish better than 15th place in last 5 seasons though. It's encouraging to see him get a top 5 finish, but I really need to see more out of him.

Plate tracks are always a place where Keselowski seems to be really good or really bad. Over the past two seasons, he has posted 3 wins in his last 8 plate races. At Talladega, he have posted two of those wins. In his last 7 races at Talladega, he has compiled 3 wins. That's nearly 50% of the time since the 2014 season. In his last 5 of 7 races here, he has finishes of 7th or better. It has been a amazing track for Keselowski over the past three seasons. He's not quite as good at Daytona though. He posted a win over the past two seasons, but that's the best I can say about him though. In his last 7 races, he has finished 18th or better in 6 of those 7 races. While 4 of the last 6 races at Daytona, he's posted finishes of 27th or better. You can see what track that he is clearly better on.

I expect great things from Brad Keselowski in 2018! He may not be the homerun that we are looking for every single week. But more often than not, he will be there at the end. And that alone will give him a shot at a great finish. Let alone, if he actually has a great racecar. I think Keselowski will have about 2 to 3 wins in 2018. And much like every other year, you can expect his total of top 5 finishes to be in the middle teens and his top 10 finishes to be somewhere in the 20s. I am not expecting anything out of the unusual for him. It will be like pretty much any other year. He contend for wins, be consistent and find a way to be in the conversation for a top 10 (and plus some) on a every week basis. That's all I really got to say about him for the most part.

***All stats are from DriverAverages.com

Twitter - @JeffNathans18

2018 Fantasy Nascar Preview: Ricky Stenhouse Jr

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Ricky Stenhouse Jr is coming off a career year after a career year. Pretty good, wouldn't you say? He had his best season (at the time) in 2016, where he impressed a lot. What does he go out and do? He have a even better season in 2017 and scores his first two career wins.

Intermediate tracks will be good and bad for Stenhouse Jr in 2018, but the past two seasons he has proven that he can be a very consistent driver. I think we have to bank on that consistency for him to have any real constant fantasy value. We like predicable in fantasy nascar and Stenhouse Jr will deliver that, too.  His best three intermediate tracks (in my opinion) are Atlanta, Kansas and Texas. One of three, I would have to say that Atlanta is his best one of those tracks. In 5 career starts, he has posted 19.0 average finish and that includes an 36th place finish back in 2015. In his four other career races, he has finished 20th or better in every race. He has been very competitive over the past two seasons here. He has finished 10th and 13th in 2016 and 2017 races. Statistically based on performed, they also were very strong races for him. He performed very well in the low-teens for the event and that alone should tell you should about him. In my opinion, Atlanta is just one of those tracks that fits perfectly in his driving style.

Kansas is another really good track for Ricky and he has plenty of experience here. In 6 of his 10 career starts, he has finished in the top 20. In 4 of his last 5 starts at Kansas, he has finished 19th or better. He has finishes of 11th, 19th, 13th and 13th in those four finishes. In last fall's race, he finished 29th. In that event, he crashed into the wall and then dragged his side against the wall for about half a lap. Obviously he had something going wrong, prior to hitting the wall. Regradless, the results ended up being the exact same for him. That would end up eliminating him from the championship and advancing to the next round.

Charlotte is another solid track for him and he has been really good lately here. In his last 5 starts here, he has finished 20th or better in all five races. In 4 of those 5 races, he has finished 15th or better. Including finishes of 13th and 15th during the 2017 season. In his first three starts with the #17 car at Charlotte, he had no finishes better than 24th. Since then, he doesn't have any outside of the top 20. It really shows the improvement that RFR has made since latter part of the 2015 season. This is one of the greatest example of that!

Bristol is a really strong track for Ricky Stenhouse Jr and I would go far as saying it his best track so far in his career. I guess the plate tracks would put up a tough fight for that title, but outside of that, I don't think another track comes close. Ricky is a stud at Bristol and his numbers can back that up, too. Earlier in his career, I thought he was bit of a fluke. But as the races go by, it is hard to argue that he is just that good here. In 10 career starts, he has finished in the top 10 five times. That's 50% of the time and he also has posted 3 Top 5 finishes. That's 30% of the time! In 7 of his last 8 races here, he has finished in the top 16. In 5 of his last 8 races here, he has finished in the top 9. Including in 2 of the last three races overall. In his last three races, he has finishes of 14th, 9th and 2nd. He has been at least a top 15 driver on pure performance in all three races, in my opinion. That's a very good sign for him in 2018 and beyond!

Martinsville is one of his worst tracks on the schedule, despite a career-year at the paperclip in 2017. He posted two top 10 finishes of 10th place in 2 races during the 2017 at Martinsville. Prior to that, he had one career top 15 (15th place) in his first 8 races. During that 8-race span, he posted just 2 finishes in the top 25. And they were 15th and 25th. They came in 2013 and 2014 seasons.

Shorter flats will be a very interesting place for him in 2018, but I still think RFR is a working progress on this type of track. I would have to say that New Hampshire has been the kindest to him over the past couple seasons. In his last 6 races at New Hampshire, he has compiled 5 finishes of 17th or better. Yes, that's pretty damn good! He's very consistent at New Hampshire of late. This is something he has struggled to do in general on this type of track so far in his career. In his last 5 races at this track, he has finished 4 of 5 races in the top 15. He swept the top 15 with finishes of 14th and 15th in 2017.

New Hampshire may had been more kind to him over the past couple seasons, but I think Phoenix is his BEST shorter flat. In 2017, he was really good and he has been at his best at this place throughout his career. In 2017, he finished 8th and 4th. Prior to that he had three straight finishes of 23rd or worse. In 7 of his 10 career races at Phoenix, he has finished 18th or better. And there is Richmond, where he has had his issues at. Ricky has had been inconsistent at times, but he isn't terrible here. In 4 of his last 5 races, he has finished 19th or better. In 5 of his 10 career races at Richmond, he has finished in the top 19. I would like to see him consistently contend for those top 15, but isn't too far off of that. Just need a little more work here overall.

Pocono has been a very good track for Stenhouse Jr over the past couple seasons. He has been very good since the start of the 2016 season. In the past two seasons, he haven't finished worse than 18th place. The June races has been his best finishes though. In the last four June races, he has 3 top 15 finishes. Including finishes of 11th, 15th and 15th. His number in the August races aren't bad, either. In his last 4 August races, he has 3 Top 18 finishes. Including finishes of 16th, 18th and 18th. You really cannot say anything bad about Stenhouse Jr when he can post these kind of numbers at this track. A place that has given drivers a lot of trouble over the years. Stenhouse Jr has done well for the equipment he been given. Indy has been a real trouble spot for Stenhouse Jr. It is considered one of his worst tracks in Nascar and his numbers back that up, too. In 5 career races, he only has one finish better than 24th. That race came in 2016 and he finished 12th in that race. Otherwise, his finishes look like this: 35th, 35th, 24th and 25th. This is just a ugly nightmare that I personally want no part of!

Plate tracks has given Ricky his first two career wins. They both came in 2017 and both were just a few months apart. Don't be fooled though, he was considered a great plate racer long before the 2017 season. He has been very good since his debut in 2013. At Talladega, he has 5 top 10 finishes in his last 8 races at this track. Prior to finishing 26th in last October's race, he had back to back top 5 finishes in May 2017 and October 2016. In his last 4 races (before last October's 26th place finish), he had 3 top 9 finishes. 

Daytona has some interesting trends for the most part. He started off very well at the Daytona 500 in his career. In his first 3 starts at the Daytona 500, he posted finishes of 20th, 11th and 7th. Trending in the right direction, right? Yup and then things went south quickly. In his last 3 Daytona 500 races, he has finishes of 29th, 22nd and 31st. In the July races? He has been a lot better. In 5 July races, he has posted 3 top 11 finishes. Including finishes of 1st, 5th, 19th, 41st and 11th. In his last two July races, he has back-to-back top 5 finishes.

Road Courses will be a kind of track that I would try to avoid using Stemhouse Jr on. He have a dirt background, but that means little to nothing when it comes to road course racing. Even though he haven't completely terrible. In 5 career races at Watkins Glen, he has posted 3 finishes in the top 20. His best career finish is 18th though. In his last three races here, he has finishes of 20th, 38th and 34th. His best-career finish of 18th place came in his first very first start. Since then, he have two 20th place finishes to his credit. That's all!

As one would guess, drivers usually struggle a lot more at Sonoma than Watkins Glen. Since, the skill level required at Sonoma is vastly different than Watkins Glen. At Sonoma, it typically reward the skillful road course racers. Stenhouse Jr doesn't have the skill-set mastered yet. In 5 career starts, he has one top 20 finish. He finished 20th in 2015. His next best finish? 26th. In those other four races, he has finishes of 38th, 26th, 31st and 27th. Things haven't ended all too well for Ricky overall at the road courses.

***All stats are from DriverAverages.com

Twitter - @JeffNathans18

2018 Fantasy Nascar Preview: Aric Almirola

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Aric Almirola will driver the #10 car in 2018 for Stewart-Haas Racing, after previously driving for Richard Petty Motorsports over the past 5 seasons. Many would argue that Aric won't have much more success with the #10 team than he did with the #43. I do see their point as Aric isn't a monster talent behind the wheel. I do, however have to disagree with that. I think to a certain extent that Aric will have more success with SHR. In my opinion, Aric did an amazing job with the 43 team. Considering Petty never exactly delivered him top 10 capable cars. Nobody could expect him to go out there and contend for good finishes, because he never had the equipment. He has a better ride now, one that is capable of running closer to the top 10. Obviously getting the #10 car means he will be at end the bottom of the food chain. But I think Aric is capable of doing some really good things in 2018. That if he can live up to his full potential with his new team.

Intermediate tracks never has been a strength for Aric Almirola in his career, but he is also in new equipment than he was in recent years. I don't think it will make a world difference, as Aric will probably get a lot of the leftovers stuff. But I think Aric can surprise us with some solid finishes here and there. With that said, I think there will be inconsistency. I think this can be said about every driver, aside from the top 4 or 5 drivers in the sport. What are his best intermediate tracks? I personally would have to say Texas and Michigan when looking at his career numbers. Of course that all was with Richard Petty Motorsports, too.

At Texas, he has been very good recently. Overall, he has been consistent in the top 20. In his last 8 races at Texas, he has compiled 5 finishes of 19th or better. Including 4 finishes of 19th or better in his last 6 races at this track. In 2017, he posted finishes of 15th and 18th. He wasn't nothing special during the events though. But he still found a way to get respectable finishes in the top 20. It's hard to complain about that! At Michigan, Aric has found success throughout his career. In 11 career starts, he has compiled 7 finishes in the top 20. In 4 of his last 6 races at Michigan, he has finished 22nd or better. Including finishes of 12th, 14th and 20th. What do those three finishes have in common? All three finishes has came in the last three August's races at Michigan.

Shorter flats has been where Aric has had his best results and performances. In general. this has been the type of track that he been the most reliable on. By far, he has been the strongest at Phoenix and Richmond. In 26 career starts at both tracks (combined), he has compiled 20 career top 20 finishes. That's insane consistency right there and it is exactly what has given him fantasy value over the last couple seasons. I would say that Richmond is his slight better track though, but it could either way really. At Richmond, his record of late is impressive! In his rookie's season, he had a pair of 26th place finishes. Since? In 10 starts, he haven't finished worse than 21st. That 21st place finish was back in April 2014. In 4 of his last 5 races at Richmond, he has finished 17th or better. These finishes includes 17th, 9th, 17th and 4th. More impressive? 3 top 10 finishes in his last 7 races at Richmond. Statistically speaking, it is one of better tracks on the schedule. And I don't think many people even know it!

At Phoenix, he is also very good on. In his first two starts in 2007 (Dale Inc) and 2010 (the first go around with Richard Petty in the #9 car), he had finishes of 27th and 26th. In his 12 starts since then? No finishes worse than 22nd place. In 11 of those 12 races, he has finished in the top 20. In 4 of his last 5 races at Phoenix, he has finished 17th or better. Including 3 of his last 5 races ending in 13th or better. In his last race here (November 2017), he finished 9th for that event. Then there is New Hampshire, the worst of the three shorter flats. In his last 5 races at New Hampshire, he has compiled 3 finishes of 24th or worse. Including finishes of 26th, 24th and 43rd. In his last 9 races overall, he has finished 23rd or worse five (5) times. In 4 of his last 7 races, he does have finishes in the top 20 though. As you can tell, Aric is really good at two of the three tracks. Then the three one, he is a bit more iffy on.

The larger flats has been a pretty interesting place for Aric to say the least. Indy haven't been a good track for him, but it haven't been bad, either. When looking at his record, it is basically middle of the road for Aric. In 6 career starts at Indy, Aric has compiled 4 finishes of 13th-21st. He had best career finish in 2017, where he finished 13th. From a performance stand-point, he was his best in his firs two career starts. In his last three starts at the track, he haven's started any better than 22nd. i think that in itself puts him at an disadvantage. Especially since Indy is a very difficult place to make passes on. If things can improve with the #10 car with Aric behind the wheel, I think Indy is a good place for him to be a solid sleeper.

The other larger flat is Pocono. And man is his track record is ugly! In his first 5 career starts, he posted 4 finishes between 18th-22nd. I can live with that from Aric, can't you? Since August 2014? He has made 6 starts and has finished 35th or worse in 4 of those 6 races. His last 6 finishes at Pocono: 38th, 39th, 20th, 18th, 43rd and 35th. If you are looking for an example of  a ''terrible'' track record, then you found it. You could say it is bad luck and I would agree. However, when you get these sort of finishes in such a span. You also have to face the facts that it is a pattern. Even if he has stupid bad luck here lately. Nothings points to him having better luck and the only thing that will do that is good results. I would avoid him at Pocono going forward, until he proves himself.

Bristol and Martinsville are among two of his favorite tracks on the schedule! Martinsville is a very good track for him and not even people even realize it! Over his last 6 races here at Martinsville, he has posted 5 finishes of 18th or better. In his last 8 races, he has compiled 6 finishes in the top 18. In his last three races he has finishes of 18th, 18th and 15th. If you exclude his 40th place finish (engine) in 2016, he haven't finished worse than 21st place. Since hopping in the #43 car, he haven't finished worse than 21st in a race, other than that lone DNF in 2016. He also has compiled 9 top 20 finishes during that 12-race span. At Bristol, he isn't quite as good. But he has been on the record of saying that he loves Bristol Motor Speedway! He have some bad finishes of late, but still it a very good track for him overall. In his last 9 races here, he has compiled 5 finishes in the top 17. Overall, he has finished 6 of his last 9 races in the top 22 at Bristol. If you exclude last season's results of 22nd and 37th, he has finished 5 of his last 7 races in the top 17. He's pretty damn good here!

Road courses haven't exactly been a strong suit for Aric and I doubt it will change that much with the #10 team! At Sonoma, he haven't found much success at all! In his career so far, he only has one finish better than 20th. He finished 14th back in 2015. In 6 career starts, he has only two top 20 finishes overall. His other four finishes consist of 27th, 27th, 28th and 23rd. He haven't ever started better than 25th at this place, either. He's a lot better at Watkins, which isn't exactly much of an accomplishment. But still, he isn't terrible at Watkins Glen. Over his last 6 races at Watkins Glen, he has compiled 4 finishes between 16th-21st. In other two finishes outside of that range? 27th in 2016 and 37th in 2014. Not bad. He had an accident in 2014 race and I believe he had a tire down that caused him to nail the tire barriers. I would trust him a lot more at Watkins Glen than Sonoma.

The plate tracks will be a very strong area for Aric Almirola! He is one of the most underrated plate racers in the series. Over the past two seasons, he has under a 12.0 average finish at this type of track. Over his last 6 Daytona races, he has finished 5 of 6 races in the top 15. His last 6 finishes at Daytona: 4th, 15th, 12th, 34th, 15th and 1st. Doesn't that look really good? He has been on fire since winning at Daytona. He's pretty good at Talladega, too. In his last 6 races at Talladega, he has compiled 5 finishes of 16th or better. His last three finishes consists of 5th, 4th and 8th. Over his last 8 races at Talladega, he has finished 16th or better in 6 of 8 races.

I don't think Aric will go to contending for wins in 2018 or anything close to that, but I think he will be better than he was in recent seasons. That might be difficult though, since he had a pretty impressive run in 2015. But I still stand by that, I do believe he can accomplish some things with his new team. He is not super talent, so don't expect the world. Personally, I would focus on targeting him at his strongest tracks. And they would be places such as Martinsville, Richmond, Phoenix, Talladega and Daytona. Off top of my head those are always the tracks that stick out to me. If he can post solid numbers in the #43 car, then there's no reason why he cannot keep having solid runs there. Those are the tracks that he will most likely have success on. Of course this is Nascar, so who knows what gonna happen. Personally, I am gonna be keeping an eye on Aric Almirola through the first 4 or 5 races. I think that gonna tell a lot in terms of what sort of season he could have.

***All stats are from DriverAvearges.com

Twitter - @JeffNathans18

2018 Fantasy Nascar Preview: Trevor Bayne

Welcome to TimersSports

Trevor Bayne get zero respect from anyone it seems and I get that because of RFR's recent history. The entire Roush organization were at their low point in the 2014 and 2015. Logically the drivers get shit on and a bad reputation comes to the surface. I am not your average fan, so you cannot fool me that easily. I love digging up stats and comparing them, so my perspective is a little different. And over the past two seasons, Bayne has been making solid gains as a driver. But Roush was so bad 3 or 4 seasons ago, it is hard to see those gains. Especially, if you don't keep track of his progress.

In his rookie season, he posted just 2 top 10 finish with 25.8 average finish in 36 races. Yeah that's bad and that was during Roush's worst season as whole. 2015 was a ugly year for the whole organization. So no surprise that their most inexperience driver had the biggest struggles. In 2016, he was a lot better overall. In 36 races, he posted 2 top 5 finishes and 5 Top 10 finishes with 19.9 average finish. In the first 23 races of the 2016 season, he posted 14 Top 20 finishes. He had 20 Top 20 finishes in 36 races. So yeah, it was a decent season in 2015 was. But I felt like he truly took a big step in 2017. Especially how he started the season. In the first 11 races of the 2017 season, he posted 8 finishes of 13th or better. Sounds pretty promising, don't you agree? I was pretty impressed by him in those 11 races. Then there was the All-star break and that when things started to go downhill. In the final 24 races, he only posted 4 top 13 finishes. If he can keep up the consistency for a longer period of time, I think he can have a really good season in 2018. That's all I really need to see from him in 2018. I don't care about how many top 5 finishes or top 10 finishes he get. Just consistently finish in the top 15 on a weekly basis. Worry about the top finishes, later on down the road.

He will be inconsistent on the intermediate tracks in 2018, but I expect him to make some sort of progress though. In 2017, he was really consistent all around on the intermediate. On the 1.5 mile tracks, he finished 20th or better in 9 of 11 races. In addition, he had finishes of 17th and 5th at Michigan as well. He wasn't a top 5 driver at Michigan, but things really worked in his favor at the end though. His best intermediate tracks so far in his career are Michigan, Las Vegas and Atlanta. All three are good tracks for him, but two of them we only visit once per season. So our data pool is limited. But like anything else, we have to trust the data until it says not to.

At Atlanta, Bayne only has four career starts. However, he has made them count though. In 4 career starts, he has compiled 3 finishes of 19th or better. His lone non-top 20 finish is 22nd in 2016. Last season was his best performance by far at Atlanta. If you watch the 2016 Atlanta race and then watch the 2017 race, it is clear as day which race he was better in. He was legit top 15 driver in last season's race. The next track that I would like to look at is Las Vegas. In 7 career starts, he has posted 5 finishes in the top 20. In the past two seasons, he has finishes of 13th and 17th. He has made three starts in the #6 car at Atlanta. He has improved in each start. He finished 28th in 2015, 17th in 2016 and 13th in 2017. The trends are on his side for a possible top 10 finish in 2018. Again, they are trends and can change in an instant. But it is encouraging to see!

Michigan is one of his best tracks on the schedule, in my opinion. Bayne has always been a big fan of Michigan. So it make sense that he has had some success here, dating back to his days in the #21 car. Of the non-plate tracks, he has made the most starts here of any track. He has made 6 starts with the #6 car and has posted 4 finishes of 17th or better. In fact, he has posted 3 top 15 finishes in those 6 starts. That's 50% of the time! The June races been really good for Bayne. He has made 7 starts in the June races since 2011. In those 7 races, he has compiled 6 finishes in the top 20. His finishes in June are as follow: 17th (2017), 15h, 9th, 19th, 15th, 43rd (engine - 2012) and 16th (2011). The August races? Well not quite as promising: 5th (2017), 24th, 22nd, 41st, 21st, 24th and 24th (2011). He has no top 20 finishes in the August race, prior to finishing 5th in last season's race.

The flats tracks will be at times a tough type of track for Bayne to find success on. He has struggled on the flats over the past couple seasons. I think RFR's struggled and his inxpereince both can contribute to that. I would like to look at the shorter flats first. His best shorter flat track is Richmond. He has mix results there, but his finishes of late are very encouraging. Bayne has posted 3 finishes of 17th or better and 3 finishes of 23rd or worse. Good news? His last four races (2 seasons): 25th, 13th, 14th and 17th. That's really good, minus his most recent race here.One thing I always look for in young drivers is if they are completing laps and getting more experience. That's so key for drivers like Bayne. If he keep up his recent good runs here, the finishes will follow. I would be very happy with some more top 17 finishes from him in 2018. In fact, I wouldn't surprised at all.

New Hampshire and Phoenix are where I am most considered about when it comes to the 5 flats. Over the past two seasons, both tracks are ranked in his bottom-three worst tracks. In fact, they are by far his worst two tracks among places with two races per season. How bad have he been at these two tracks? In his last 8 starts combined, he has compiled just two top 20 finishes. That matches his number of DNFs as well in those 8 races. In his last four races at New Hampshire, his best finish is 20th in last July's race. In 4 of his 6 career starts, Bayne has finished 23rd or worse. He has been even worse at Phoenix. Just terrible so far in his career. In 7 career starts, he has only one finish better than 23rd place. That was 19th in last March's race. Otherwise his finishes look like this: 39th, 28th, 23rd, 34th, 28th and 40th. That's good enough for a 30.0 career average finish in 7 career starts. Woof!

The larger flats are not much more encouraging for Bayne so far in his career. At least not at Indy, he has been dreadful in his limited starts. In 7 career starts, he has only two top 20 finishes. And three finishes better than 30th overall. He hit rock bottom in 2014, where he finished 43rd. Since then, his finishes are as followed: 40th, 30th and 20th. He has improved his finishing position in each of the last three seasons at Indy. I know it is not saying much, but things are looking up for him and the 6 team at Indy. The other larger flat is Pocono. And it has been actually pretty consistent track for Bayne over the past couple seasons. In his two seasons (or last 4 races), he has compiled 4 straight finishes of 13th-21st. He has finishes of 20th, 21st, 19th and 13th. He haven't been anything special during the races, but he has logged laps and gotten pretty good finishes. That's the best thing he can do at a challenging track such as Pocono. He need to keep doing that in 2018 and keep adding solid finishes in the top 20.

Bristol and Martinsville are the next two tracks that I would like to look at. Bristol is one of his best tracks on the schedule! RFR has found a lot of success at Bristol recently and 2018 could be the same as well. In Bayne's first two starts, he had finishes of 28th and 34th. Since then? He has 5 straight finishes of 15th or better. In his last 4 races, he haven't finished worse than 12th in any of them. In 3 of his last 4 races, he have 3 races with driver ratings above 80.0. That's important because a driver rating is a great tool to measure a driver's performance. You can tell by that or a driver's average running position. He had finishes of 7th and 11th in 2017. At Martinsville, he isn't quite as good though. He had a tough start to his career at Martinsville, before breaking out in 2017. In his first 5 career starts, he had just one finish better than 23rd. In fact, 3 of his first 4 races ended in 27th or worse. In 2017, he had finishes of 6th and 13th. I am still not convinced that he is legit here though. I need to see more than two races at a place like this. But he has my attention though.

Road courses are a ideal place to avoid Trevor Bayne in general. Both places has been pretty tough on him overall. In six career starts combined, he has just top 20 finish and two finishes in the top 22. Both of those finishes came at Watkins Glenn. He had a 9th place finish in 2016 and 22nd in 2015. He wasn't a top 10 driver in the 2016 race though. Not even close. He probably was lucky to be 20th place driver, if he was even that during the event. At Sonoma, he has a career high of 23rd in his debut at the track in 2015. In his three starts, he has finishes of 23rd, 25th and 27th. Yeah, I think I would avoid him in general on the road courses. There's better places to him!

Plate tracks has been very good to him over the past couple seasons and this isn't something that I expected. After winning the Daytona 500 in his Cup debut, he really struggled to produce good numbers for awhile. At Daytona, he has really good numbers in his last 5 races. Since July 2015 (5 races), he has compiled 3 top 10 finishes in 5 races. From July 2011 to February 2015 (8 races), he had no finishes better than 20th place. In 7 of those 8 races, he finished 27th or worse. So it has been a very good turnaround for him over the past few seasons. At Talladega, I would say that his success isn't as good. In his last 4 races here, he has compiled 3 finishes of 17th or better. In 6 of his last 9 races at Talladega, he has finished 21st or worse.

Trevor Bayne won't have a great season and he won't get much respect from your average race fan. That's just how it will be. That does not mean, he isn't a decent driver. He belongs here at this level. But he will only go far as RFR will take him. They need to deliver him quality racecars to race. He started off 2017 very well (like he did in 2016, too) and I would love to see him do that again. He will likely be his best on the intermediate tracks overall. You can throw Bristol in there as well. Every other type of track, I have my concerns about. The flats will likely be where he is the most inconsistent on. Richmond looks like the best place to employ him though. Road courses will be consistent, but probably consistently bad. As I breakdown up above, he haven't had many good races in his limited experience at both Watkins Glen and Sonoma. He needs to show me something before I trust him at either track. As for plate tracks, I am still undecided about. He has been good over the past couple seasons, but I am not sold on him. Convince me, Trevor!

***All stats are from DriverAverages.com

Twitter - @JeffNathans18

2018 Fantasy Nascar Preview: Austin Dillon

Welcome to TimersSports

Austin Dillon had a consistent rookie season for the most part, but then he was all over the map in year 2. He made some impressive strides in 2016 in year 3 with a good mix of consistency and results. But then last year, he really step back and regressed his ways back to the 2015 season. Even though, he did score a win though. He posted 3 top 5 finishes with 4 top 10 finishes on 18.6 average finish. At end of the season, he was very good though. In his last five races of the 2017 season, he posted 5 straight finishes of 14th or better. That was his best stench of the season.

The intermediate tracks will be an interesting place for him in 2018. He will be inconsistent and have mix bag of results. I think his upside is in the top 15 somewhere, with his realistic finishes coming between 12th-20th somewhere. He may sneak in a top 10 finish here and there, but I am not expecting many. His best two intermediate tracks are Michigan and Kansas, in my personal opinion. Of the two, Kansas is his better track overall. Both are pretty similar though, so no shocker that Dillon have performed well on both. At Kansas, he has performed consistency well. In his last 4 races at this track, he has compiled 4 straight finishes of 16th or better. Including a pair of 8th place finishes in 2016. At Michigan, he always been pretty good. He said it is his favorite racetrack on the schedule. Back in 2016, he said he loves big and fast tracks. That's exactly describes Michigan in general. In 2014 and 2015, he had zero finishes better of 20th. But he was very good in 2 of those three races. But he had bad luck in both races. One race, he had couple of speeding penalty and the other one he had a tire go down after pit stop. However, he has been very good lately. Over his last 5 Michigan races, he has compiled 3 finishes of 8th or better. Including a finish of 7th in last August's race.

The shorter flats will be inconsistent for Dillon, but he should be able to grab a couple solid finishes. I say like most tracks, his best possible outcome is for him to finish in the low-teens. Over the past couple seasons, his best track is New Hampshire. In 8 career starts, he has only one finish outside of the top 20. In his last 6 races (3 seasons) here, he has compiled 4 finishes of 16th or better. In his last three races here, he has finishes of 19th, 15th, 16th and 13th. Of all of the shorter flats, he is the most consistent here. All he need to do now is up his finishes a little more.

Phoenix has been a okay track for him overall. In his last 5 of 6 races, he has finished 20th or better. His lone non-top 20 is 39th place. In his last 4 races, he has finishes of 18th, 14th and 9th. Clearly, he isn't as good here as he is at New Hampshire. But still, I wouldn't mind similar kind of results in 2018 from him. In fact, I would say that is exactly what I am expecting. Then there's Richmond! And I would call this his worst track among the three shorter flats. In 8 career starts, he has only one finish better than 20th place. And that was 13th in September 2016. However, he have finishes of 13th, 20th and 20th in 3 of last 4 races at Richmond.

At the larger flats tracks, he has been a interesting option in recent seasons. Both are good track for him, but nothing over the top though. At Pocono, he haven't had many bad races for the most part. In 8 career starts, he has finished 6 of 8 races between 13th-19th. In 3 of his last 5 races, Dillon has finished 13th. In last season August's race, he finished 21st. That was just his 2nd career finish outside of the top 20 at Pocono. At Indy, he been pretty up and down. He has two finishes in the top 10 in the last four seasons. But he also have two finishes outside of the top 20 as well. His finishes of 9th and 10th came in 2014 and 2016. So trends say he is due for another top 10 finish though. Take that for whatever it is worth to you.

The next two tracks that I want to look at is Martinsville and Bristol. Both venues are very good for Dillon. Over the past two seasons, not many tracks on the schedule has been kinder to Dillon than Martinsville. In his last 4 races at Martinsville, he has compiled 4 finishes of 17th or better. Including top 5 finishes in each of the past two April (spring) races. Overall, Dillon has finished 18th or better in 7 of his 8 career starts. Heading into his cup career, this is one of the last places that I figured Dillon would succeed at like he has. I would go far as to say that Austin Dillon is one of the most underrated drivers in the series at the paperclip. At Bristol, he is also decent and pretty unappreciated. In his last 6 races at Bristol, Dillon has 4 finishes of 13th or better. Overall in 8 career starts, Austin Dillon has compiled 5 finishes of 13th or better. He finished 13th and 4th in two of his last three races here. He had a DNF back in last August's race. He finished 39th after completing just 230 laps.

Like most inexperience drivers, Dillon has had up and down moments at both road courses. Of the two tracks, I would have to say that Sonoma has been a little kinder to him. In 4 career starts at Sonoma, he does not have any finishes better than 17th place. He had finishes of 17th in his first two career starts in 2014 and 2015. Over the past two seasons at Sonoma, he has finishes of 18th and 22nd. In terms of performance, I thought last season race was one of his better days on a road course. He was better than that 18th place finish. At Watkins Glen, he haven't found much success. His first career start was his best race. He finished 16th and was his best performance. In his last 3 starts, he does not have any finishes in the top 20. In fact, his best finish in that span is 26th. Good news? That 26th place finish came in 2017. In 2015, he finished 36th. In 2016, he finished 31st. See a pattern? He is improving his finishes. Good sign for 2018!

Plate tracks always seems to be a strong suit for Austin Dillon, even when he doesn't finish up front. He does a great job in the draft and has some talent when it comes to it. Dillon is already considered one of the better drivers in the series on these plate tracks. Last season at Daytona, Dillon struggled to get good finishes. He had finishes of 36th and 19th. In his 6 previous starts (prior to 2017 season), he had 5 finishes of 9th or better. In all 6 of those races, he finished 14th or better. Was 2017 just a fluke? I would like to think so, or at least give him benefit of the doubt. At Talladega, his numbers aren't quite as good. In his last 8 races here, he has compiled 6 finishes of 15th or better. While, he have 3 finishes of 14th or better in his last 5 races at Talladega. Much like Daytona, he had a tough 2017 season. He had finishes of 29th and 36th at Talladega. I would like to think that 2017 was just a bad season for Dillon.

After a disappointing season, aside from his win in 2017, I think a lot of people will be overlooking him. And I won't lie that I have my doubt about him. But I think he can have a good season, if RCR can improve from last season. Dillon will have his ups and downs, but you got to remember that he is still trying to develop as a 5th-year driver. He will have his good days and bad. Intemediate tracks will probably determine weather his seson is a success or a failure. This goes for most drivers on big-time teams. I think Dillon will have a few top 10 finishes, but most of his finishes will be in the low to high teens. That is where I am expecting most of his performances overall, too. The flats will be interesting because like most tracks, he seems to be a little up and down. He seems to be pretty consistent on the larger flats and at New Hampshire. You can say the same thing with Phoenix, but to a lesser extent. Plate tracks will another strength for Austin Dillon in 2018. For most of his young career, he has been very impressive on this type of track. You can expect more of the same in 2018! I think Dillon improve his top 5 and top 10 finishes in 2018, but he will not go back to victory lane though.

***All stats are from DriverAverages.com

Twitter - @JeffNathans18

2018 Fantasy Nascar Preview: Jamie Mac

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Jamie Mac had a great 2017 season, it was so good, I think most of us knew before June that he would have one of his best seasons as a driver. I think that right there showed the improvement at CGR from 2016. Jamie started the 2017 out really strong and never really slowed down. He wasn't super fast, like his teammate, but he was very consistent. In terms of stats, I would say it was his 3rd-best season of his career. He posted 3 Top 5 finishes and 17 Top 10 finishes with 14.6 average finish.

I think my biggest takeaway from the 2017 season with Jamie was how good he was on a weekly basis without ever really being considered a ''threat'' to win. It was kinda crazy how often he would run between 8th-14th place. You rarely saw him in the top 5, but yet you could count on him hovering somewhere in the middle practically on race long. He had just 9 races, where he finished outside of the top 15. With 4 of those finishing happening in 4 straight races during the Nascar playoffs.

You can expect Jamie to be really good everywhere, but I believe he will be his best on the intermediate tracks. The CGR cars were really good at this type of track in 2017. I would like to point out that, he was very consistent on the 1.5 milers. I don't think he get nearly enough credit on how well he ran on them in 2017 as a whole! In the first 7 of 8 races on the 1.5 mile tracks, he finished in the top 10. His lone non-top 10 finish? He finished 12th in May at Charlotte. In last three races on this type of track wasn't nearly as good though. He had finishes of 34th, 18th and 13th. I think a lot of that had to do with Jamie was already eliminated from playoffs contention, too. He also was very good on some of the larger intermediate tracks. Such as Michigan, where he swept the top 10 in both races. And Michigan's sister track (Cali), he also finished in the top 10 on.

What are Jamie's best tracks among the intermediate tracks? Michigan, Texas and Kentucky stand out when looking over the past couple seasons. I think Michigan is his best racetrack of the three though. Over the past three seasons, it is his best racetrack on the schedule. Over his last six races here, he has compiled 5 top 10 finishes. Over his last 8 Michigan races, he has compiled 6 Top 12 finishes. Including 4 straight top 9 finishes, all coming in each of the last two seasons.

Kentucky and Texas are also solid intermediate tracks, but I would say the edge goes to Texas though. As there is more races at Texas than Kentucky each season. At Kentucky, he has scored back-to-back 7th place finishes in each of the last two season. In his last 5 seasons at Kentucky, Jamie has posted 3 finishes of 7th or better. That's great, but the sample size is small. His numbers at Texas are pretty good, too. In his last 7 starts, he has compiled 4 Top 10 finishes over that span. In last season's races, he posted finishes of 18th and 7th. In the spring race, he was very good and competitive enough to finish in the top 10. He finished 7th. In the fall race, he just wasn't the same. He finished a lap down in 18th. I do believe that was a fluke though. His success on intermediate in general in 2017 backs that theory up as well.

The shorter flats are always a strong area for Jamie Mac and that will be no difference in 2018, either! When looking at his numbers over the past couple seasons, it is hard to overlook his record at Richmond. He has been pretty good overall! In his last 7 races at this track, Jamie has compiled 4 Top 10 finishes. Over his last 9 races at this track, he has compiled 5 top 7 finishes. In just his last three starts, he has compiled finishes of 14th, 6th and 7th. In spring 2017 and fall 2016, he had finishes of 6th and 7th. Both races, he had a driver over 101.0 each time. Statistically, that is really good for Jamie. It's definitely over his average on any given raceweekend. I would have to say that anything over the mid-80s is really good for Jamie Mac.

Phoenix is the next shorter flat track that I want to look at! Over the past two seasons, he has compiled 12.0 average finish at Phoenix. That ranked as his 10th-best track among the 22 tracks on the schedule. I wouldn't say that he is overly great at Phoenix, as most of his performances here don't stand out. But, he is very consistent though. Over his last 8 races at Phoenix, he has finished 15th or better in 7 of those 8 races. In 4 of those 8 races, Jamie has finished 11th or better. Including finishes of 6th and 11th in each of the last two November races. When in each of the last two Spring (March) have been 15th and 16th. His worse finishes has came in the spring races lately, well his better runs has been in the fall races. The opposite can be said in 2014 and 2015, as his better finishes came in the spring time with 2nd and 10th. While finishing 14th and 15th in the fall races. I guess the only thing we can take away from him at Phoenix is: He is just a consistent top 15 driver in general, who knows beyond that.

I would have to say that New Hampshire is his worst track among the shorter flats tracks. He just haven't been that good overall. In his last three races at New Hampshire, Jamie best finish in 16th place. In his last three races, he has compiled finishes of 19th, 17th and 16th. Good news? His has improved his finish position in each race. Only a position or two each time, but still progress though. However, he haven't found much success here in general since the 2014 season. In 5 of his last 8 races at New Hampshire, he has 16th or worse. Including 4 of his last 6 races overall. Of the three shorter flats tracks, I trust him the least at this place honestly.

Martinsville and Bristol are the next two tracks that I would like to look at. He has been really consistent at Bristol. Over his last 8 races at this track, he haven't finished worse than 14th in any of those races. That's really impressive, considering all of the messy races that we have seen there in recent seasons. I always go back to the August 2014 race, where he might had won that race, if he didn't have a bad pit stop and line up in the wrong line. He was just domiance in that event. He led 148 laps on his way to 8th place finish. Since then, he's been really good. Nothing close to being a top 5 driver, but he always get quality finishes though. In 4 of his last 5 races here, he has finished 12th or better. I think Martinsville is another good track. I think this place is just a Jamie's track. He understand how to get in a rhythm and be patience. Both of those things are key at Martinsville. In his last 6 races at this track, he has compiled 3 Top 10 finishes and 3 finishes of 23rd or worse. In his last 10 races, Jamie has 5 finishes in the top 10. He's basically batting .500 at Martinsville over the past 5 seasons. There aren't a lot of drivers who can say that, can they?

Plate tracks are always where a lot of people look at Jamie because of his track history. But I have to disagree with that. He has won at both Talladega and Daytona. But a lot of the times, he have found his way into an DNF. He haven't won at Daytona since the 2010 season and he haven't won at Talladega (or a race in general) since October 2013. At Daytona, Jamie haven't finished better than 14th since July 2013. He finished 7th back in July 2013. In 8 races since then, he have only produced 3 Top 15 finishes during that span. In 15 race since his last win (at Daytona), he have only produced 5 Top 15 finishes. That's just 30% of the time!

He's a little better at Talladega though. Since his last win in October 2013, he have produced 3 top 11 finishes in 8 races. All 3 finishes came in the May (spring) race in each of the last three seasons. His finishes in the spring races over the last three seasons are 4th, 2nd and 11th. His other five races since October 2013? 19th or worse in each race. Over his last 15 races (since October 2010) at Talladega, he has finished 19th or worse in 10 races. No disrespect to Jamie, but he's kinda overrated at these plate track. Good skills on this type of track, but he doesn't ever seem to get the results consistently!

The final type of track that we are going to look at is the road courses! Jamie has been pretty up and down on them throughout his entire career. I think he is a very skilled road course racer, which explains why he have had some very solid runs at Sonoma. And on more than a couple occasions, he have give away some strong finishes. In his last 4 races at Sonoma, he have compiled 3 finishes of 11th or better. He finished 10th in 2017. In 3 of his last 5 races here, he have started on the front row. I think he's a little more consistent at Watkins Glen over the past 5 seasons. In 4 of the last 5 races at Watkins Glen, he have finished 14th or better. He has finished 14th or better in 5 of the last 8 Watkins Glen races. I think Jamie's best contribution is his consistency. That has been his thing over the past couple seasons.

There's not a lot of things to say about Jamie Mac in 2018. He is exactly what we think he is. A consistent driver with a lack of upside. If you are looking for a safe driver, then he's usually your guy. But you won't see him contending for top 5 finishes that often though. Most weekends, he will run between 8th and 15th place. He will be at his best on the intermediate tracks and shorter flats. You cannot expect him to good on all of them. I say New Hampshire and Kansas are his worst two tracks on those kind of tracks. I think Bristol will be another great place for him, he have that consistency down there. Martinsville is another really good for him, I personally think he will be overlooked there actually. Might be a good place to be sneaky and use him. As for plate tracks, I would just stay away from him for the most part.

In 2018, I fully expect him to make the playoffs once again. But like last season, I don't see him making the Nascar playoffs via wins. I think it will be in on points. My top 3 places for him to win on would be Michigan, Richmond or Talladega. I don't really like him that much on the plate tracks, but his recent trends in the spring races are very encouraging!

2018 Jamie Mac Profile 

***All stats are from DriverAverages.com

Twitter - @JeffNathans18

2018 Fantasy Nascar Preview: Ty Dillon

Welcome to TimersSports

Ty Dillon had a pretty unusually rookie season with the 13 team. As I pointed out in the profile in December, he showed a regression as the season went on. Most rookies tend to get better as the season goes on. Ty Dillon's best days were pretty early on in the season. In his first 22 races, he posted 16 top 20 finishes. He was very consistent. But then he hit that rookie wall and only collected 4 Top 20 finishes in the final 14 races. Obviously it doesn't take away from what he did accomplish, but I think certainly have to put a bitter taste in his mouth.

Shorter flats and plate tracks has been Ty's most consistent kind of tracks so far in his young career. I would give the edge to the shorter flats though. I only say that because he has a bigger sample size on them. Of the three shorter flats (Phoenix, Richmond and New Hampshire), he is by far the best at Phoenix. In his last three career starts at PIR, he has average finish of 14.0 with worst finish of 16th. He has finishes of 11th and 16th in last season's events. He had one of his best races of the season in November's race at Phoenix. He finished 11th, after starting 29th. That alone should tell you a lot about Dillon's performance. He posted a very solid driver rating of 82.9 as well. That is definitely above average driver rating for him, so that also lines up.

Between Richmond and New Hampshire, I would say they are both pretty equal. But I would have to give the edge to New Hampshire as Dillon's better track. In 2017, he had finishes of 16th and 22nd. He was nothing special in either race, but at least he was consistent. Of the two tracks, I think Richmond is more memorable to me though. I specifically remember being blown away by Dillon's performance in April's race. He was impressive that day. He drove through the field and was actually running just inside the top 10 or just outside of that mark for awhile. He didn't do it on pit road, either. He did most of it on the racetrack. Of course, he eventually found issues later in the race and faded to mid-pack. But I still thought it should be noted.

He was very consistent with the No.13 team on the plate tracks in his rookie seasons. In four races, he posted 3 finishes of 16th or better. He had finishes of 11th and 13th at Talladega. He also added 16th place finish in the July's Daytona race, too. This is no shocker as the 13 team has a lot of success with Casey Mears at both Daytona and Talladega. The small car team has found ways to succeed for years on this type of track!

Next, we are going to look at the larger flats of Pocono and Indy! He haven't been very competitive at either track so far in his career, but he had a theme in 2017 though. In three races on the larger flats last season, he had three finishes of 19th or better. In those three races, he had finishes of 17th, 18th and 19th. He was very consistent, but he probably wasn't a top 20 driver in any of those three races. But he found a way to get there in the end though. That's the important thing for him. Complete all of the laps and get a good result. He did exactly that on the larger flats in last season's races!

The short tracks of Bristol and Martinsville are the next tracks, I would like to look at. Bristol is a very interesting place for him. He finished 15th and posted 64.6 driver rating in last spring's race. But followed it up with DNF in the summer's race. He have only two starts under his belt with split outcomes. Good luck trying to figure out Dillon at Bristol for 2018! But he shouldn't be too bad though. I would say in the upper teens/low-twenties potential is likely! As for Martinsville, I wouldn't want to touch him. He just wasn't very good at Martinsville and really struggled from my recall. He finished both races off the lead-lap and had pair of ugly performances overall. His 22nd place finish last spring somewhat saves him, I guess. In terms of performance as a whole, his Martinsville's numbers were near the bottom.

The intermediate tracks was a weak spot in 2017 for Ty Dillon and nobody should be suprised. The 13 team doesn't have the speed or a driver with the experience to overcome their disadvantage. We knew that heading into the season and he didn't disappoint for the most part. But he had his share of solid runs, too. I would say that Atlanta and Kansas are his best two tracks so far in his very limited cup career!

Let's look at Kansas first, since he had a pair of starts in 2017 there. In two races, he had finishes of 16th and 14th. He also had a start there with the 33 team in 2015. He finished 26th in that race though. Back to 2017, he had a pair of strong outings. He started 22nd and 29th in those races, but finished on average 11.5 positions ahead of his original starting position. He didn't deserve that high of a finish in either race, as he was only a good low-20 sort of driver in both races. Still, I will give the kid some credit. He scored a pair of top 20 finishes at Kansas Speedway. Good for him, hopefully he can repeat that success in 2018, too!

He only made one start at Atlanta last season (obviously - because there's only one race), but certainly made it count though. He started 26th and finished 15th. This was his best finish on an intermediate track in 2017. He reminded me a lot of Casey Mears. As Mears had a lot of success in a similar fashion with the 13 team at Atlanta. In 2016, Dillon filled in for Stewart and finished 17th. When we compare the performances, Dillon actually ran a little better in the 13 car than he did with the 14 car in 2016. Because that makes complete sense, right? Still, two top 17 finishes is two top 17 finishes.

Road courses will be a type of track that I would stay away from Ty Dillon on! More so at Sonoma than Watkins Glen though. He finished 28th after starting from 35th at Sonoma. From a pure performance standpoint, I would consider it as one of his worst races of the season. He simply struggled the entire weekend as most young drivers do at a place like Sonoma. It didn't really surprise me at all. He was a lot better at Watkins Glen and scored a top 20 finish with 19th place. I wouldn't be against using him there in 2018, but I would rather wait and see on him there though.

***All stats are from DriverAverages.com 

Twitter - @JeffNathans18