The NASCAR Cup Series will travel to Iowa Speedway this week. There are a lot of people who have been fighting to get Iowa added to the Cup Series schedule (Rusty Wallace fought hard for the track he designed to be added), and now it is going to happen. The Cup Series will join the Xfinity Series in the land of corn this weekend. It is exciting to see Iowa added to the schedule. I just hope the Gen-7 car can out on a half-way decent race.
IOWA SCHEDULE
The schedule this weekend will be similar to what we had last week in Sonoma. The Xfinity Series and the Cup Series will have a 50-minute practice session Friday and then they will line up for qualifying Saturday. The Xfinity Series will race Saturday afternoon and the Cup Series will race Sunday night. It is good that NASCAR decided to have a night race Sunday, so people can celebrate Father’s day. The races move from FOX to NBC this week, so make sure you are on the right channel.
Here is the schedule for the races at IOWA…
FANTASY NASCAR SCHEDULE: This is one of those weeks when we get to see practice before our Driver Group Game picks need to be locked in. I will wait to post the Driver Group Game picks until after practice Friday. I am also going to wait to post the Best Bets until after practice. I want as much info as possible before I decide on which drivers are the best for Sunday night’s race.
FANTASY STATS FOR IOWA
It is nice to see new tracks added to the schedule, but it makes handicapping the race a bit difficult. We do not have any data to work with this week, so we will have to focus on what had at the tracks similar to Iowa Speedway and then look at the practice and qualifying speeds this weekend.
Iowa is a 7/8- mile, short, flat track. It is similar in size and shape to Richmond. We can also use the data from the races at Phoenix and North Wilksboro to help handicap this race. The drivers who were fast in those races, should be fast this weekend.
Kyle Larson, Christopher Bell and Brad Keselowski tested at Iowa two weeks ago. I will give these drivers a bump in my Driver Ratings and some extra attention when I fill out my lineups for Sunday’s race.
Here are the stats from the races on the short, flat tracks this year, sorted by Driver Rating…
EARLY WEEK PICKS FOR IOWA
ONE & DONE PICK: CHRISTOPHER BELL
DRIVER GROUP GAME PICKS: CHRISTOPHER BELL, KYLE LARSON, JOEY LOGANO, BRAD KESELOWSKI, CHRIS BUESCHER, TY GIBBS, CHASE BRISCOE, NOAH GRAGSON
FANTASY LIVE PICKS: CHRISTOPHER BELL, MARTIN TRUEX JR., KYLE LARSON, JOEY LOGANO, BRAD KESELOWSKI GARAGE: DENNY HAMLIN
* I will update these picks after qualifying.
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