Three races remain in the 2018 MENCS season and things just got interesting. Joey Logano won at Martinsville so his spot in the championship race is secure. Kyle Busch, Martin Truex Jr. and Kevin Harvick are all 25 points above the cut line. This leaves Kurt Busch, Clint Bowyer, Chase Elliott and Aric Almirola almost in a “must win” situation. Can one of these outsiders beat the “Big Three” to Victory Lane Sunday? The race can be seen Sunday at 3pm ET on NBC Sports Network.
Driver Group Game A Picks
Kevin Harvick (1): Harvick has the car to beat Sunday. The No. 4 car qualified 3rd and posted the 5-lap, 10-lap speeds and the 2nd best 15-lap speed in final practice. I wanted to save my last allocation with Harvick for Phoenix but there is no guarantee he will dominate the race next week. Phoenix was reconfigured so who knows what will happen. I do know Harvick is blazing fast this week so I will burn the allocation Sunday and find someone else for Phoenix.
Group A Driver Rankings: 1) Kevin Harvick 2) Kyle Busch 3) Martin Truex Jr. 4) Joey Logano 5) Brad Keselowski 6) Kyle Larson 7) Denny Hamlin 8) Jimmie Johnson
Driver Group Game B Picks
Ryan Blaney (1): Blaney has a blazing fast car is qualifying. The car was not as fast in practice but the winds will not be 20 MPH Sunday. Blaney has a habit of showing up at the 1.5-mile tracks, winning the pole and leading a lot of laps. I think this is one of those races. I will burn my last allocation with Blaney Sunday.
Eric Jones (3): I have 3 allocations left with Jones so I am not worried about allocations. He ran very well in the first race at Texas. Jones led 64 laps and finished 4th. Jones has finished 8 of the 9 races on the 1.5-mile tracks this season in the top 11. The No. 20 car has the speed to finish in the top 10 Sunday.
Group B Driver Rankings: 1) Ryan Blaney 2) Erik Jones 3) Aric Almirola 4) Kurt Busch 5) Clint Bowyer 6) Chase Elliott 7) Daniel Suarez 8) Paul Menard 9) Jamie McMurray 10) Austin Dillon
Driver Group Game C Picks
Chris Buescher (4): I have Alex Bowman as my other Group C driver. Bowman did not look good enough to use this week so I will go with Bowman at his home track. The JTG Daugherty cars will be using Hendrick Motorsports chasis and engines for the first time this week. The team will be switching from Richard Childress Racing engines to HMS engines next season so they decided to make the switch for the last 3 races of the 2018 season. The HMS cars have more speed and this should help Buescher finish in the top 15 Sunday.
Group C Driver Rankings: 1) Chris Buescher) Alex Bowman 3) William Byron 4) Regan Smith 5) David Ragan
Good luck this week!
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