I participate in an online fantasy league for NASCAR, hosted and run by the official NASCAR website. This is my second season in this league...last year, my inaugural entry into the NASCAR fantasy league, I gathered up enough points to finish in 3rd place. This year, I started out winning the Daytona 500, then I tapered off for a bit, and hovered around 6th place. Over the past 4 weeks, I have settled into a groove and picked off the person in front of me in the league...all without changing a single driver in my lineup...simply changing which driver I thought might win the race that weekend...today I sit in 2nd place, 400 points out of first place...and I'm not changing a single driver this week either.
Here is a rundown of how I make my picks...the first thing I do is create a spreadsheet for the race itself. This spreadsheet contains 5 simple categories; PRACTICE #1, PRACTICE #2, PRACTICE #3, QUALIFYING, and the current list of drivers who have obtained stage points this season. I place the Top 10 drivers in each category, then I cross reference them to see who is running well that weekend...for instance, this week at Michigan, Kyle Busch finished in 2nd place for all 3 practice runs and qualified 4th...giving him the most entries in the 4 weekly categories, and thus a place on my roster...I have also picked him to win this race as he was the most consistent throughout the practice sessions and qualifying. I then round out the rest of my roster of 5 drivers by determining who else ran well all weekend...and finally, I take a peek at the finishing order of the Xfinity race, if it is being held at the same track, and there are Monster Energy Cup drivers involved, just to see who has gained experience and how they finished...I then add two top tier drivers to the roster, and I flesh it out with the best possible drivers available from the lower ranks. I use several websites to obtain and track data in order to make these picks...my drivers for this week, as well as for the past 4 weeks are...Martin Truex Jr., Kyle Larson, Kyle Busch, Chris Buescher, and David Ragan...