Start or Park: STP 500

Martinsville Speedway is one of NASCAR’s wild card tracks. Along with Bristol Motor Speedway, the restrictor-plate, superspeedways, and road courses, these are tracks where it is ok to take a flyer on some driver that might not be on your fantasy radar screen. On the other side of that coin, normally guaranteed drivers can get into trouble that was not of their making and drop to the back of the pack. That can happen to veterans and Young Guns alike, so sprinkle the lineup with a wide range of talent.

Level One

Start Kyle Busch
It is incredibly difficult to pick a winner at the Cup level because there are so many variables in a race. Stats like Kyle Busch’s from the past three years on this tiny course in Southern Virginia point in a direction, but strategy and on-track incidents can alter the final results—a fact Busch knows only too well. With a current, five-race streak of top-fives, it is hard to imagine that he will not contend for victory, however, and that will make him a good value. Busch won the spring race in 2016 and the fall Martinsville event last year.

Start Brad Keselowski
Brad Keselowski was the only other driver to sweep the top five last year at Martinsville. Included in that sweep was the victory last spring. Add in a pair of top-fives in 2016 and a second-place finish in spring 2015 and he has almost as great a record as Busch. One of the things that makes him so strong is that many fantasy owners overlook Team Penske on short, flat tracks—especially since they struggled so badly at Phoenix two weeks ago. That makes Kez a great differentiator for your roster.

Park Kyle Larson
The Young Gun is much too strong a driver to discount on any course even if he seems to struggle there. Martinsville is not statistically his best track by any stretch of the imagination, but with only nine races under his belt the numbers are unclear and anything can happen going forward. Of course, he is capable scoring a top-five—but allocation management comes into play in every style of game. Players need to manage their resources in such a way as to maximize potential and Larson enters the weekend with three consecutive results outside the top 10 on this track.

Level Two

Start Clint Bowyer
Clint Bowyer struggled badly at Martinsville during his sojourn with HScott Motorsports and that could have killed his confidence on this short track. Instead, he strapped into the Ford and swept the top 10 with a seventh in the spring and a third in the fall. From 2012 through 2014 he did that with regularity and posted a six-race, top-10 run. It is a fair bet that he is going to restart that long streak and could actually be the top-performing driver from Stewart-Haas Racing

Start Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
Fantasy players occasionally have to gamble in order to get a leg up on the competition. It’s easier to do that on wild card courses like the restrictor-plate, superspeedways and short tracks, so this could be a good time to roll the dice with Ricky Stenhouse Jr. Last year, he finished 10th in both races on this bullring after having a best of 32nd in the four previous Martinsville starts. He had only one prior top-15 so he’s not going to be popular with conservative players. If he manages to pull the rabbit from the hat one more time, Stenhouse is going to be a remarkable value.

Park Jimmie Johnson
After breaking into the top 10 for the first time in a long while last week at Auto Club Speedway, everyone is prone to look at the No. 48 team as having solved their problems. They may have unraveled some, but the likelihood that all will be sunshine and rainbows for Jimmie Johnson is slim and this is a track that can be treacherous to any driver who enters it with a tentative nature. If Johnson stays out of trouble, he could post a top-10, but we have a sense that trouble is lurking around one of these paperclip-shaped corners.

Level Three

Start Kasey Kahne
Martinsville is a driver’s track. It is impossible to win anything at the Cup level without a complete package, but driver input is more important as a percentage on short tracks than the unrestricted, intermediate speedways. With a volume of setup notes in his head from the Hendrick Motorsports days, Kasey Kahne knows how to get around this track and is capable of scoring as good a result as the team can provide. If the cautions fall the right way and he winds up on the lead lap at the end of the day, he could easily score a top-15.

Start Chris Buescher
Chris Buescher pulled out a major upset a couple of years ago with a rain-aided victory at Pocono Raceway, but he shocked the field even more with a fifth in the 2016 Bass Pro Shops Night Race at Bristol. He is a solid short track racer and last year came close to earning a top-10 at Martinsville in the STP 500. He finished 11th, but anything between that and 20th will make him a great value in salary cap games and Pick ‘Ems.

Previous Start or Parks

Auto Club 400
TicketGuardian 500 (Phoenix)
Pennzoil 400 (Las Vegas)
QuikTrip 500 (Atlanta)
Daytona 500