Bristol Night Race is a NASCAR Fantasy Dice Roll

Charlie TurnerAug 23, 2008

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Tony Stewart led the most laps in three of the last five Sprint Cup Series races held at Bristol Motor Speedway. His Ave Finish in those three races was 20.3.

The driver with the best Ave Finish - 6.3 - over the last seven Bristol races is Dale Earnhardt Jr. Junior has led just 36 laps in those seven contests though.

If you are making fantasy NASCAR picks for Bristol and looking for help from NASCAR’s Loop data, good luck. It’s going to be tough.

The top five in Loop Driver Rating for Bristol are all winless in 2008. That’s winless everywhere, not just in Thunder Valley. All five have DR’s above 100, led by Matt Kenseth at 109.0. Kenseth has the top stats for Ave Position and Ave Mid Race Position - 7.3 and 6.1. He leads in Percent of Quality Passes, Fastest Laps and Laps in the Top 15.

Greg Biffle is next with a DR of 103.2, followed by Kevin Harvick -102.6, Tony Stewart - 102.4 and Jeff Gordon at 101.4. Harvick leads one of the passing categories and Stewart has his leading Laps Led stats. Harvick and Stewart each have one Bristol win. Kenseth has two and Gordon five while Biffle remains winless.

The Busch Factor

The other five time winner in the field is Kurt Busch, who has a tenth best Driver Rating of 91.4. Kurt is followed in 11th by the Busch the Younger. Kyle Busch has a win at Bristol. Hell, it seems like he’s won everything this year. He did take the Craftsman Truck Series race this week, for his 18th NASCAR win of 2008. Incredible feat.

The other drivers with 2008 seasons that challenge Kyle Busch are Carl Edwards, Jimmy Johnson, Jeff Burton and Earnhardt Jr. Edwards and Johnson have DR’s of 86.2 and 78.2 respectively. Not strong, but Edwards won this race in 2007. Junior has those Ave Finish stats and Burton is sixth best in Driver Rating at 94.5 - right behind Junior at 96.8.

I don’t see how you pick anyone but Kyle Busch here, so I will take him to win. Dark horse is the wrong word for Greg Biffle but the Biff is my alternate pick. He is the only driver to finish 100 percent of all of his Bristol Laps. And at Bristol, it’s almost as much about missing the wrecks as being fast.