Fantasy Pick'em: 2010 Goody's Fast Relief 500

The Sprint Cup Series is beginning to hit its stride, five races in and heading to Martinsville Speedway for the Goody’s Fast Relief 500. It’s the first race of 2010 where drivers and teams will be guaranteed in based on 2010 owners’ points, meaning we’ve run enough of this year to nail down who’s on top and who’s in a hole.

Clearly, Jimmie Johnson is on top after winning his first career race at Bristol. I didn’t have him in the column at all last week, judging by his abysmal record at the track the past few years. My pick, Kyle Busch, wound up ninth, while darkhorse Marcos Ambrose had a poor day and wound up 33^rd. Kurt Busch had the best day of anyone I mentioned, finishing third, while Dale Earnhardt Jr. placed seventh and Kevin Harvick finished 11^th.

I’d be picking Johnson to win Martinsville even without the momentum of three wins in five starts, and the latest coming at his worst track. He’s also won five of the last seven run at the paper clip, six in his career, and you don’t expect any less from him barring catastrophe.

As for a dark horse, check out Juan Pablo Montoya. Until he wins an oval race in Cup, I think this is a fair place to categorize him. He led 37 laps here in the fall, and has a career worst Martinsville finish of 16^th in his track debut in spring 2007. Montoya has only failed to complete one lap in six starts, a key fact at short tracks where cars can easily fall laps down under long green flag runs.

Don’t like what you see? Here are three more:

Denny Hamlin won the two races out of the past seven that Johnson did not, which basically guarantees him a place in the column. Yes, he’s 19^th in points, and I bet that a bum knee’s got something to do with it. That might even spell disaster for him at the track, where he has a strong 7.2 average finish and only one finish outside the top 10 in eight starts. But the Virginia native, barring that one poor finish (a crash in spring 2006), has always run well here. I’m going to give him a break.

Jeff Gordon has seven wins, 22 top five finishes, and 28 top-10s in 34 career Martinsville starts. He hasn’t been outside the top 10 at the end of a Martinsville race since 2002. If you took Gordon’s Martinsville track record and tallied up the points, he’d have enough to win the championship in almost any pre-Chase season.

Finally, in an attempt to make this column interesting (and not just pick the four drivers with the best four average finishes at Martinsville), Ryan Newman is a choice that many might overlook. Like a handful of other drivers worthy of consideration, Newman has a 50 percent top 10 rate; unlike many of them, he hasn’t won at the track. But Newman’s 2009 record at the track, with finishes of sixth and sevent and a pole in the fall race, merits strong consideration for this weekend.