NASCAR

[Buffalo4]

Definately Kurt Busch, he's WON 4 out of 8 times he's raced here. Rusty Wallace will be there at the end too. He's won this thing 9 times. And as always Gordon is good here too.

 

I also like:

 

Dale Jerrett

Kevin Harvick

 

Darkhourse:

 

Ricky Rudd

[Jumpin Johnies]

Definately Kurt Busch, he's WON 4 out of 8 times he's raced here. Rusty Wallace will be there at the end too. He's won this thing 9 times. And as always Gordon is good here too.

 

I also like:

 

Dale Jerrett

Kevin Harvick

 

Darkhourse:

 

Ricky Rudd

 

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You have good darhorse picks my man. I like Rudd personally as well. Jarrett's all that great on short tracks but keep an eye on Rusty and Kenseth. Newman also does well on short tracks.

[Retrograde assault]

I'll go with the 24 but if he don't win this race I'll quit picking him because I'm probably jinxing him by picking him to win every week!

[Wolv]

#24 as well.

 

Lookin for Martin to swing a top 5.

[Dingleberry]

Busch has won 4 out of the last 5 that I have been there (missed last summer's race). So I'm thinking ABB (anybody but Busch). Pulling for Harvick, he usually does pretty well there.

[Jumpin Johnies]

Busch has won 4 out of the last 5 that I have been there (missed last summer's race).  So I'm thinking ABB (anybody but Busch).  Pulling for Harvick, he usually does pretty well there.

 

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You're a lucky man if you've had tickets to a race at that track.

[Dingleberry]

Used to have spring race only. Then when they wiped out the bleacher seats on the backstretch, I got offered the full season. The only problem is, it has kind of ruined me for all other tracks.

[Joe Six Pack]

I got to go with Busch

 

but Rusty should do well

[Buffalo4]

The favorites

 

Fill in the blank: Bristol has been to what as Talladega Superspeedway has been to Dale Earnhardt Jr.?

 

The answer is Kurt Busch of course.

 

 

Crew chief Jimmy Fennig, team owner Jack Roush and Kurt Busch Credit: Autostock

 

Domination on any track in this modern age of parity is not easy, but with 43 cars competing on a track about the size of two city blocks, Bristol compounds the problem of ever-changing rules with sheet metal damage.

 

With all of the unknowns facing a driver on this bullring, Busch has nevertheless amassed four victories in the past six races; three of these trophies were earned consecutively and he has won the last three spring editions of the race. Since his rookie season when he finished 42nd and 25th in the two events held at Bristol, Busch has never failed to earn a top-10.

 

Struggling last week at Atlanta did nothing but improve his odds at Bristol. First, his poor finishing result brought his salary cap down a titch, and second, it redoubled the focus of the team to get back to the front of the field.

 

Since the 2004 Chase for the Nextel Cup began, Busch has finished in the top 10 in all but two events, so they have not forgotten what it feels like to contend. Still, the taste of victory is evaporating from their tongue. Busch's last trophy came in the inaugural postseason race at New Hampshire International Speedway, more than 10 events ago.

 

It is a testament to just how strong this team has become to acknowledge that Jamie McMurray's past couple of weeks have been disappointing. Instead of top-10s he has finished in the top 15. During the last 18 races, McMurray has finished at the head of the field 13 times with another three top-15s tossed in for good measure, which makes him one of the most consistent drivers in the game. In that span of time, the No. 42 has averaged a finish of eighth.

 

Better still, McMurray always seems to raise his game on the high banked tracks. In 10 races at Bristol, Dover, and the newly redesigned Homestead-Miami Speedway, McMurray has never finished outside of the top 15 and has completed all but four laps of the 4,138 contested (99.903 percent).

 

Considering only his Bristol results, the numbers are even more impressive. Here at on this high-banked short track, McMurray has never finished worse than 11th in four starts and has an average finish of seventh.

 

 

Kevin Harvick has the highest average Bristol finish among active Nextel Cup Series drivers. Credit: Autostock

 

Kevin Harvick wasn't expected to be strong at Atlanta, and he wasn't. Now that he has that race out of the way, the No. 29 is prepared to finish in the top 10 once more. In fact, if all things were equal, Harvick would be considered one of the favorites to win the event on the strength of two runner-up finishes and two more top-fives in an eight race career on this high-banked short track. With the No. 29 without crew chief Todd Berrier, however, all things are not equal.

 

Harvick should still be considered a pre-weekend favorite to score a top-10 finish, but he bears close attention on Friday because his value to you could swing either way. If the team struggles in practice and qualification his stock may fall, but you will still want to think of him in terms of a driver who may fit a niche on your roster instead of one to build that list around.

 

Dark horses

 

Sterling Marlin is a dark horse capable of winning. Too much has gone wrong in recent weeks to wager outright that he will be in Victory Lane -- especially in light of the fact that 40 Bristol starts have passed without it happening yet -- but Marlin is a good bet to finish in the top 10. In 20 years worth of races on his home-state track, Marlin has finished in the top 10 nearly 50 percent of the time (18) and has a runner-up to his credit back in 1991.

 

Since the beginning of the 2000 season, Marlin has been in the top-10 more often than he has been out of it, with seven of 10 finishes recorded inside that mark. He is also rarely the victim of a bad finish. During the last five years, he has finished outside the top 15 only twice at Bristol and his worst result was only 19th.

 

The fantasy owner is getting used to thinking of Greg Biffle as a favorite on most tracks, and his numbers at Bristol are anything but disappointing, but with only one top-10 in four previous starts he has to be considered a dark horse this week. Granted two of those finishes outside the top 10 have been as close as a driver can get, (earning an 11th and 12th last year), but a 22nd under the lights in his rookie season should give you a little pause to consider.

 

On the short tracks, Biffle's record is less impressive. He has only two top-10s in 13 career starts, but he tends to raise his game on the high banks. Last year, he dominated the season-ending event in Homestead and while that progressively banked track is three times the length of Bristol, it nonetheless gives him a reason to be encouraged.

 

Avoidance principle

 

Dave Blaney should be very pleased with his top-10 finish at Atlanta last week. While it had been a while since he had cracked the combination to the front of the field at any track, some of his best results in part-time rides in 2004 came on the unrestricted intermediate speedways so that his seventh-place finish was not entirely unexpected. The short tracks are a different matter altogether.

 

 

Dave Blaney has not been strong on short tracks during his career. Credit: Autostock

 

In his last seven attempts on tracks less than one mile in length, Blaney has finished 30th or worse in six of those races. In fact, he completed all the laps of only one event when he came home 18th at Richmond in a rain-shortened event in 2003. At Bristol the numbers are worse -- where in spite of making eight previous attempts -- Blaney has failed to record a single top-15 and averages a finish of worse than 30th.

 

As good as teammate McMurray has been on the high banked tracks, Casey Mears has struggled. He bears mention as a driver to avoid because he has been such an excellent dark horse in recent weeks that the casual fantasy owner might ride his wave onto the short track. That would be a mistake.

 

Mears has never finished in the top 15 on either a short track or one of the high-banked tracks. His average finish on the short tracks is a meager 31st and his median result on the high banked tracks is only slightly better at 30th. At Bristol his average finish is 29th which points to a remarkable consistency that does not work in his (or your) favor.

 

A lot was expected of Bobby Labonte early in the year, which contributed to a healthy salary cap when the green flag waved over the Daytona 500. A series of unfortunate events have nearly obliterated his chances of making the Chase for the Nextel Cup even though the season is barely four events old.

 

Don't look for his luck to improve this week at Bristol. This is one track that does not favor drivers who are desperate for a good finish and in recent years it has frowned on Labonte in particular.

 

After recording a streak of seven consecutive top-15s, Labonte has struggled through the last three races without another and has an average finish that is only 25th. In fact, his career average on this track is merely 19th, making Bristol his second worst track in terms of average finishes for tracks to which he has visited more than four times.