TALLADEGA 1 - Wrap Up

Talladega is in the books, and for a plate race it actually ended fairly clean. The FNG team rolled out:

Kevin Harvick (8 Starts Remaining before Talladega)
Jeff Burton (7 Starts Remaining before Talladega)
Jamie McMurray (9 Starts Remaining before Talladega)
Regan Smith (7 Starts Remaining before Talladega)

Benching:
Jeff Gordon (9), Juan Pablo Montoya (7), Dale Earnhardt Jr. (7), Bobby Labonte (8)

Obviously the only poor decision I made was benching Earnhardt Jr. but again, he is a pick that I rather not use since 70+% of Yahoo users had him on their team. If Junior were to wreck, you're gaining massive points. When Junior finished 4th, you gain nothing on your competitors. All I lost was about 25 points in starting McMurray over Junior, and only missing out on 25 points is a victory in my book at an unpredictable plate track.

With Harvick 5th, Smith 15th, Burton 16th, and McMurray 21st I netted 254 points, adding in all 4 drivers leading plus 11 qualifying points with Gordon/Junior throws my score up to an incredible 305 points. On a plate track you can be satisfied with anything above 200, and happy with anything over 250, but a 300+ day is the ultimate home run. FNG is now up 3% from last week, up to 85th Percentile in Yahoo overall.


So what did we learn looking forward:

-The Ford FR9 engine was not the dominate force it was in Daytona. This was even evident in the Friday practices. You don't have to buy heavy into the FR9 going into Daytona in July, especially in the B-List.

-Trevor Bayne's crash shows why it is not always a good idea to go with the pack on choices. Much like Junior, he was another driver who a large majority of fans chose him based on his Daytona 500 win. You gained points if you picked basically anyone else on your C-List this week.

-Talladega proves once again why you start save. Guys like David Ragan, Juan Pablo Montoya, Ryan Newman and Kyle Busch will have tremendous value at other tracks, and a start here that ended up with pure bad luck is devastating over multiple weeks when you won't have the ability to start them elsewhere.


We're off this week for easter. We'll compile all the loop data for Richmond next week (and we're back on the regular lockdown schedule of Thursday night in Richmond).