NASCAR Fantasy Fusion: Playoff Racing at Atlanta

Well we got another feel-good, walk off win last week at Darlington with Chase Briscoe's first of the season, punching his ticket to the Cup Series Playoffs. The victory broke a 73-race winless streak for Briscoe. His last win was at Phoenix Raceway in March 2022. He raced hard with Kyle Busch in the closing laps, making it the second consecutive race where Busch came up one spot short.

While all eyes will be on Playoff drivers this weekend at Atlanta, I wouldn't be surprised if one of the drivers who missed the Playoffs, say like a Chris Buescher, Bubba Wallace, or Kyle Busch played spoiler this week. Stay tuned.

This Week's Pick Strategy: This week I will focus my picks on superspeedway elites. Although it will most likely be a Hendrick/JGR day, I will mix in some Team Penske drivers with an eye toward gaining some qualifying points. 

 

Active Drivers with Most Top 10s
By Race (4 races 2020-2023)
Ryan Blaney - 4 
All with 3 - Kyle Busch, Chase Elliott, and Brad Keselowski
All with 2 - Martin Truex Jr., Justin Haley, and Daniel Suarez

By Track (7 races 2020-2023)
Ryan Blaney - 6

Kyle Busch - 5
All with 4 -  Martin Truex Jr., Brad Keselowski, and Chase Elliott
All with 3 - Denny Hamlin, Joey Logano, Alex Bowman, Daniel Suarez, and William Byron

 

SOURCE: NASCAR.com

Last Year's Pole Winner: Aric Almirola

 

Last Year's Race Winner: William Byron

 

The Likely Suspects: Atlanta elites include Ryan Blaney, Chase Elliott, Brad Keselowski, Kyle Busch, Martin Truex Jr., Daniel Suarez, Denny Hamlin, William Byron, and Joey Logano.

 

My 2 Cents:  My no-brainer pick this week is Ryan Blaney. My next picks are Kyle Busch, Brad Keselowski, Michael McDowell, Austin Cindric, and Joey Logano. I will round out my roster with Justin Haley and Todd Gilliland.

My Final Four: Ryan Blaney, Brad Keselowski, Austin Cindric and Justin Haley.

Second-Look Driver: This week's second-look driver is Todd Gilliland. Gilliland is on the brink of his first Cup Series win, and he is a pretty decent superspeedway racer. In the first race at Atlanta early this season, he led six times for 58 laps. Gilliland finished 16th in this race last year, and 17th in 2022.

Points to Ponder:

• The most proficient starting positions in the field at Atlanta Motor Speedway are the first and fifth starting positions – each position has produced more wins (16 each) than any other starting position.
• The Hendrick Motorsports organization has the most wins at Atlanta in the NASCAR Cup Series with 17 victories, followed by The Wood Brothers with 12 and Joe Gibbs Racing with 11. 
• William Byron (2022, 2023), Brad Keselowski (2017, 2019) and Kyle Busch (2008, 2013) lead all active NASCAR Cup Series winners at Atlanta Motor Speedway with two victories each. 
• Kyle Busch (2020, 2021) Kyle Larson (2017, 2021), Ross Chastain (2022, 2022), and Brad Keselowski (2018, 2023) lead all active NASCAR Cup Series drivers with two runner-up finishes at Atlanta Motor Speedway each.
• Kyle Busch leads all active NASCAR Cup Series drivers in Top 5 finishes at Atlanta with 10, in Top 10s with 14, and in most laps led with 586 in 29 starts.
  
• Ryan Blaney leads all active drivers in the NASCAR Cup Series in average finishing position at Atlanta Motor Speedway with a 10.583 in nine starts.

If you're playing Driver Group Game, remember to make your initial picks by 12:30 p.m. ET on Saturday, September 7th and your final picks by 3 p.m. ET on race day Sunday, September 8th.

 

Enjoy the race!

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Carol D'Agostino has been playing Fantasy NASCAR for 17 years. She launched  NASCAR Fantasy Fusion for Skirts & Scuffs in October 2011. Each week, Carol pores through statistics and combs through her personal notebooks to arm fans with analysis and picking strategies that will leave their friends wondering how they got so smart. Carol also does race coverage for Skirts & Scuffs at Richmond Raceway and occasionally at her home track, Dover International Speedway. She is also part of the distinguished NASCAR Expert Picks panel at frcs.pro. formerly called Fantasy Racing Cheat Sheet.

When she isn’t wielding her fantasy-racing superpowers, you’ll find Carol hammering out a news release or creating a marketing strategy at a small niche public relations firm she founded called Purple Cat or executing downtown revitalization projects for a small town on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.