Fantasy Race Preview: Kobalt Tools 500 | FIOMattyH's Blog

Only the most blindly rabid Dale Earnhardt Jr. fan would have predicted that Junior would be the Hendrick Motorsport driver with the most series points after three races. Finishing strongly in two of the three 2008 events has been a mark of consistency that Earnhardt's teammates at the House of Hendrick have not been able to match.

Two-time defending Cup champ Jimmie Johnson bracketed his 2nd place finish at California with a wreck in the Daytona 500 and a very so-so run to 29th place at Las Vegas. Jeff Gordon has two DNF's to go with a 3rd place run, and Casey Mears sits 34th in points, only 19 points ahead of missing the top 35 cutoff with only two races left for him to live on his 2007 owner's points.

Junior won the Budweiser Shootout and one of the Gatorade 150's at Daytona in February, but it has been awhile since he has won a regular Cup race. Atlanta Motor Speedway is a place at which his winless streak could end. Dale Jr. has one career win and seven top five finishes at AMS and a Loop Data Driver Rating of 100.2 which is fifth best. He also has 410 Green Flag Passes, second most, and a series-high 210 Quality Passes, which are passes of cars in the top fifteen, under green flag conditions.

The four drivers with higher Driver Ratings at AMS than Junior are led by his teammate Jimmie Johnson. It seems like every track we look at has Johnson as the stats-on favorite to win again. Once again, he dominates the 16 Loop Data categories that make up the Box Score with series best stats in ten. Johnson's Driver Rating is tops at 118.2, has run 1830 laps - 93.7% - in the top 15, and led 16.7 % of all laps in the last six races for a total of 326. Top those off with a Series-leading Average Finish of 4.7 - any questions?

The guy with the next best Average Finish to Johnson's 4.7 is... (Read the full article here: Fantasy Race Preview: Kobalt Tools 500)

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