Sunday, June 24, 2018

2018 Fantasy Nascar Sleepers & Dark Horses (Sonoma)

Welcome to Timerssports

We hit to major milestones in the last week on this website. First one being, we celebrated 4 years this past Monday being at this exact address and being known as ''Timerssports''. That's super cool! I never envisioned this thing to last this long. The second big milestone was, we topped 95,000 pageviews! Two huge accomplishments and there are so many people to thank for that. This is a free website and it is a honor to write up Fantasy Nascar articles every week. I love it so much. To work with guys like Jeff and Matt has been just super cool. And we plan to keep doing this thing for hopefully another four years.

Enough of the sweet talk and reflecting! We have some serious businness to discuss and that would be about Sonoma. I hope you all are ready for some road course racing, after that one-week off. That's right, it is time to get back to that grind. Oh yeah back to making stressful lineup decisions. And boy do I have a mouthful to say in today's content.

Let's get started!!

Sleepers -

Ryan Newman - Newman, I feel like is always pretty consistent at these road courses. He is never a standout, but he is usually good for at least a top 15 finish. That who he is. At Sonoma, he has been very solid of late. In 3 of his last 4 races here, he has finished 11th or better. In 10 of his 16 career races here, he has finished 15th or better. And only three times has he finished worse than 18th place. The last time he finished outside of the top 15 was back in 2011. This guy just has it down here at Sonoma! There is one red flag that scares the hell out of me though. In his last 7 races this season, he has finished 22nd or worse in 6 of those races. Are you kidding me? That's ridiculous! It is so ridiculous, he is probably due for a good finish very soon. I say it could happen this weekend!

Michael McDowell - Let's face it, McDowell has never been in anything good in his cup career. But he is a very talented wheelman on these road courses. We had seen in recent seasons, where he has ran top 20. Before finishing 14th last season, he has some terrible luck at Sonoma. Where he was competitive, but found issues. Last season, he finally saw the light and made to the other side. I was super excited for him. I was very high on him all weekend. Same goes for this weekend, too. He qualified well and had good practices on Friday, too. I think his abilities before the wheel, is what makes me most excited about him. If he can keep that car on track and avoid issues, I do believe that he will finish in the top 20 in Sunday's race.

Paul Menard - Paul is having an awesome season in the No.21 car and I have caught notice in recent weeks. Early in the season, I noticed his good runs. But I was like, ''Well maybe this is all a fluke.'' So I kept an eye on him and now I am on the bandwagon. Look at his last four races this season: 6th at Kansas, 14th at Charlotte, 11th at Pocono and 5th at Michigan. Those are some very strong finishes. And now we are at Sonoma. I know a lot of you would say that is bad news for him. And you would be dead wrong. He has been awesome here quietly for awhile. 2nd-best average finish among all tracks for his career. And second-best track over the past two seasons. Since the 2011 season (first season with #27 team), he does not have a finish worse than 20th and that was his first race here. In his last 5 races here, he does not have a finish worse than 16th. While 4 of his last 5 races has ended in 14th or better. 

Dark Horses -

Kurt Busch - Kurt is having a solid season, so far. In 5 of his last 6 races this season, he has finished in the top 8. And at Sonoma, he is usually at his best or close to it. In his last 7 races here, he has finished in the top 12 in every single race. Yes, that is correct. His last finish worse than 12th was all way back in 2010. He was in the No.2 car still. Kurt is just a savage here. That is why, I am not too worried about him starting mid-pack. Especially since 4 of the last 5 races has been won by someone who started outside of the top 12. I think Kurt will be up there before the checkers. Watch out for the 41 car!

Clint Bowyer - Bowyer will start from outside of the top 15 for Sunday's race, but I fully expect him to be one of the drivers who move forward quickly. Bowyer is one of the hottest drivers in the series right now and could easily score another win this weekend. He has past success at Sonoma and he loves this place a lot. In 7 of his last 11 races here, he has finished in the top 5. Including a win back in 2012 with MWR. Since then, he has added 3 more top 5 finishes. Including 2nd place finish in last season's race. I was honestly shocked that he didn't qualify better than he did. I figured he would had at least qualified in the top 10.

Bust of the weekend -

AJ Dinger - I know a lot of people are on the Dinger this weekend at Sonoma. For good reasons, as he always seem to be very fast on these road course. He is a very talented road course racer, but he is very tough on his equipment. His numbers here at Sonoma does reflect that. It does not take much to use up your equipment. I think that is what is happening with him. Or he just have shitty luck at this track. I am betting on the first choice though. I know a lot of people will be using him, but I will try to avoid him in few of my leagues. I could be left looking stupid, but I have a gut feeling to stay away from him.

Have a question or want to chat about Fantasy Nascar?

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Twitter - @Garryy12