One and Done: Tums Fast Relief 500

With half of the Chase for the Sprint Cup completed, the Sprint Cup Series heads to the bullring that is Martinsville Speedway this weekend for the Tums Fast Relief 500.

Eight of the last ten Martinsville races have been won by Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolets, with six of those wins by Jimmie Johnson and two by Jeff Gordon. The other two races were won by Joe Gibbs Racing cars.

As for some of the other teams in the Chase, Penske Racing hasn't won since 2004, Roush Fenway hasn't been victorious since 2002, and most of the other teams in the Chase have never won at the track.

Want to make this whole fantasy-pick thing even easier? The rule I set for this column at the beginning of the Chase was to only pick Chase drivers. Six of the best seven active drivers at Martinsville are Chase drivers, and five of them are current or former Hendrick and Gibbs drivers. I'm not going to touch Mark Martin after last week's mediocre finish, but he was the sixth-best driver anyway.

This week's list is going to look like a giant "duh," but without further ado, the picks are:

Jimmie Johnson (avg. fn. 5.3): 14 top-10s in 15 starts and six wins—five in the last six Martinsville races. I don't think I need to say any more.

Jeff Gordon (avg. fn. 6.8): Before Johnson dominated this track, his Hendrick Motorsports teammate was the king of the bullring. He has 27 top-10s in 33 starts at the track, and had a run from 1995 to 2000 where he didn't have a single double-digit finish—a streak of 12 races. He topped that streak with a fourth this spring, making an active streak of 13 consecutive races with finishes of better than 10th.

Denny Hamlin (avg. fn. 8.0): Denny's career is shorter than those of the two drivers above him on this list, but his record is similar to that of Johnson. Save one finish in the 30s in each of their rookie seasons, all of their other finishes are top-10s. Hamlin's win, top-five, and top-10 percentages are slightly lower than Johnson's, and he's all but out of Chase contention, but his track record here is too strong to ignore.

Tony Stewart (avg. fn. 12.1): Stewart's 3rd at Martinsville this year marked the first top-5 in a points-paying race for Stewart-Haas Racing. Though his overall track record at Martinsville is less magnificent than Johnson's, Gordon's, or Hamlin's, Smoke's past eight races would be envied by most drivers: During that span, he has a win and an average finish of 7.6.

Juan Montoya (avg. fn. 12.6): I know, I know, he only has one top-10 at Martinsville in five starts. But we all know that statistics can be misleading, and here's why that one isn't reliable: Because Montoya has never had a DNF at the track, and because he's only failed to complete one lap of a possible 2510, he's never finished worse than 16th at Martinsville, and that was in his first race. Given his past consistency, the elevation of his game during the Chase, and his desire to make up for a bad weekend at Charlotte, we should see those statistics improve this weekend.

Want to play One and Done? Head over to OnPitRow.com ! The game lasts through the end of the season at Homestead.