Pit Picks Review – Miami (Ford 400)
Phew! Thankfully that’s over. Holding a late season lead is pretty stressful. I can only imagine how Jimmie Johnson felt on Sunday, as I had my fingers crossed for most of the race, especially at the end when Carl Edwards was close to running on empty, that my season wouldn’t go up in smoke in one race. Fortunately my squad closed out the season with a solid week, again scoring over 300 points and winning the title by 292 points.
All in all it was a pretty solid season, marginally better than my Yahoo! Fantasy Nascar debut in 2007. My team came out on top in 6 of the 36 races, and scored over 300 points on 13 occasions.
Group 1 – Carl Edwards & Matt Kenseth
Carl Edwards was the man this week, finishing first as well as leading the most laps. This was the 2nd fuel milage win in 3 races for Edwards, and boy am I glad the #99 can really stretch a tank of gas. Kenseth wasn’t so lucky, and ran out with only a few laps to go and ended up 25th. He did run up front most of the evening, and led laps as well.
Group 2 – David Ragan, Jamie McMurray, Dale Earnhardt Jr, Martin Truex Jr
McMurray and Ragan got the starts to close out the season on the Miami-Homestead track that Roush Fenway Fords fare so well at. McMurray closed out the season with another strong run, finishing 3rd. David Ragan spent the first half of the race in the top 5, but the second half wasn’t so kind and he came home just ahead of Kenseth in 24th. Truex Jr closed out the season with a top 10 and Earnhardt Jr continued to be snake-bitten by mechanical failrure as a break calipre broke, ending his day, and giving him a 41st place finish.
Group 3 – Brian Vickers, David Reutimann
I planned to start Vickers in this group until they swapped him to the #84, attempting to gaurantee Scott Speed a spot in the first 5 races of 2009. The swap worked out as Vickers ended up passing Marcos Ambrose and the #47 team (formerly the #00), getting the second Red Bull Toyota a free pass to begin ’09. Reutimann also finished 12 spots ahead of Vickers in 20th, and led some laps earning me extra points.
Recap
- Points for this race: 316 (Edwards, Ragan, McMurray, Reutimann)
- Most Possible Points: 368 (Edwards (Kenseth qual), McMurray, Kahne, Kvapil (Reutimann qual))
- Season Points : 9871
- Current Place : 1st
- Lead over 2nd : 292
- Overall Percentile : 97th
I just wanted to say thanks to everyone for following along the past few weeks, and we’ll be back with our weekly (or race by race anyways) picks starting with Daytona in February. Stay tuned in the mean time for a series on different types of fantasy Nascar leagues, as well as some predictions for the 2009 season.
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