Thursday, March 08, 2018

2018 Fantasy Nascar Sleepers & Dark Horses (Phoenix)

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Sleepers -

Ricky Stenhouse Jr - Stenhouse Jr is very underrated driver here at Phoenix. I love him as a sleeper this weekend. He has finished 7 of his career 10 starts in 18th or better. Last season, he compiled finishes of 8th and 4th in two races. But he only posted 19.5 average running position and 78.5 driver rating in those two races though. He had much better result than he finished. But the fact that he has been able to consistently finish well in the top 18 says we can at least expect a finish in the low to middle teens. In 2018 so far, he has started in the top 10 in each and every race. He finished 16th at Atlanta and 14th at Las Vegas. In each of his three races this season, his final finishing position has improved from 29th to 14th. There's room for that trend to continue this weekend at Phoenix.

Paul Menard - Menard haven't had much success over the past 2 or 3 seasons, but Phoenix has been the hightlight for him. Over the last three seasons (6 races), he has compiled 4 finishes of 15th or better. In 2 of his last three races, he has compiled 2 top 15 finishes. He is very good here and overall pretty damn consistent. Maybe not with a lot of upside in recent seasons, but he knew how to get the finishes. On top of that, he has compiled two top 10 finishes this season already. He finished 6th at Daytona and 9th at Las Vegas. Menard could make it three out of four races this weekend. The wood brothers found plenty of success with Blaney here and more of the same could be in store for Menard!

Other options - Ty Dillon, Alex Bowman, Ryan Newman 

Dark Horses -

Erik Jones - I really like Erik Jones this weekend and I think this is one of his best chances to go to victory lane. I think the No.20 car is gonna only get better as the season goes on and Phoenix is probably one of his best shots early in the season. In two starts in 2017, he had finishes of 4th and 8th. He had average driver rating of 105.5 and average running position of 7.0. Those are some very impressive numbers for a rookie. If he can back those up, I think he is due for a big weekend. So far in 2018, he had finishes of 11th at Atlanta and 8th at Las Vegas. He is trending in the right direction and certainly will have a chance to sniff the top 5. It is not set in stone, but the opportunity is obviously there.

Kurt Busch - I liked Kurt the past two weeks, but last week did not work out quite like I was expecting it. He ran top 10, until he ran into Chase Elliott and wreck with him. Then there is Phoenix, one of his best tracks. His potential for this weekend could be something special, but we will see. With the way that his teammate has ran over the last two weeks, I wouldn't bet against him, either. From November 2014 to November 2016, he had 5 straight top 7 finishes in 5 races. In 2017, he had finishes of 21st and 25th in two races at Phoenix. He wasn't really super competitive in either race. With the way he has performed over the past couple weeks, I would say that the sky is the limit for the 41 car. He won't get the love that the 4 car is getting, but he is a legit dark horse.

Other options - Ryan Blaney,  Chase Elliott

***All stats are from DriverAverages.com and FantasyRacingCheatSheet.com

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