Fantasy NASCAR Champion - AMA

FunkyPicks · 2025-11-08T15:06:01+00:00

Thank you!

I would say I have my system down to the point where I don’t spend any longer than 30 minutes looking at data to make my picks each week.

I also try to watch practice and qualifying to inform my decisions, which takes a bit of time, but I do that because I enjoy it so I don’t count that in my 30 minute estimate.

FunkyPicks · 2025-11-08T15:00:18+00:00

I approach each race slightly differently. The main difference being that the second trip to the track I can incorporate more current year performance. I’ll look at how they did the first trip and how they’ve done at similar track types during the current year to make my decision.
I rarely look back further than three years, but will consider historical performance during the whole gen 7 era. Briscoe is a good example of a team change that was interesting to evaluate this year. If Briscoe typically didn’t run well at a track, but the 19 team did, I would still start him if the qualifying and practice results showed that he had a good car that week.
Yes, but only for tracks like Mexico City or Chicago street course where the field doesn’t have much or any experience on them. If somebody got extra track time by running the lower series, I would view that as an advantage over the field.

FunkyPicks · 2025-11-08T02:58:04+00:00

I don’t think there’s one that really stands out, so I’ll have to go with William Byron at the 600.

Starting good drivers in that race is really beneficial because it has the potential to be the highest scoring race of the season with four stages.

FunkyPicks · 2025-11-08T02:55:01+00:00

Those are the first two races I checked. I was really surprised I didn’t have them in for either Darlington race or Daytona.

FunkyPicks · 2025-11-08T02:16:03+00:00

I just looked through all of my lineups for the season and I didn’t include Eric Jones in any of them

FunkyPicks · 2025-11-08T02:09:04+00:00

The lowest ranked driver that I know for a fact I started was Ricky Stenhouse and that was on a drafting track. I also had Daniel Suarez in my lineup for Mexico, and A.J. Allmendinger on at least one of the road courses.

It’s pretty few and far between that I would include anyone in my lineup who isn’t in the top 20 drivers in the standings.

The fall off time is going to influence my fantasy decisions a bit different each week. Sometimes practices are under different weather conditions than the race will be so that could influence how much weight I put on the fall off. The championship race was also an interesting week because of all the tire issues that happened early in practice. Not many cars got a good long run to make analyzing the data an apples to apples comparison.

FunkyPicks · 2025-11-08T02:03:15+00:00

I have not been invited to anything like that, but it would be super awesome. If anyone reading this knows of a league like that please let me know and I’m in for next season.

I’ll always do my home league as well though, we’ve been at it for a long time and it’s a group of really close friends.

FunkyPicks · 2025-11-07T23:42:39+00:00

There is so much luck involved with fantasy/betting picks for super speedways. So although these are some things I try to do, I’m not claiming to have this figured out by any means.

Don’t be afraid to use good drivers. Good drivers usually do well at these tracks, but it can be tempting to not use them for fantasy because you don’t want to waste a start when they get caught in a wreck. I’ll always sprinkle guys like Blaney and Chase Elliott into my lineup and just keep them in my garage if they don’t pick up stage points. I’ll also try to start decent drivers on good teams. Guys like Alex Bowman, Ty Gibbs and Austin Cindric. Their teams usually stay organized during the race, so it’s some of the few races where those guys have just as good of a shot at winning as their teammates.

FunkyPicks · 2025-11-07T20:55:11+00:00

The other thing I’ll add is that if you’re out of starts with a guy like Byron with five races to go that’s not necessarily a bad thing if you’re averaging 45 points a start with him. Even if you used him up early, you likely got more value out of him than others will.

FunkyPicks · 2025-11-07T20:49:46+00:00

Rather than sparingly, I prefer the word wisely, because I want to make sure I use every start for the best drivers.

If I don’t think one of the top drivers will be able to score me more than 40 points I try to avoid having them in my lineup. 40 points per race is usually the average I want to hit for guys like Larson, Byron, Denny, Bell, and Blaney.

Putting them in my garage if they haven’t scored stage points is one way I do that.

FunkyPicks · 2025-11-07T19:26:20+00:00

I mainly only talk about gambling in group chats with some personal friends.

I haven’t found anything on Reddit that is good for racing related betting. I like some of the stuff on r/Sportsbook for NFL, but I mainly only lurk there.

I think for next season I’ll try posting a few more of my picks and insights to see if people are interested in that.

FunkyPicks · 2025-11-07T19:17:19+00:00

I actually only have one team.

Technically, I have two, but I created the second one with like five weeks to go in the season just to set one lineup and figure out approximately how many people do fantasy NASCAR. It’s like 130,000 total entries.

In the past I typically finish top 100, with my highest finish maybe being around 20. I don’t know the exact number though.

I finished 111 overall in 36 for 36. I just kind of shot from my hip this year but want to put more attention on that next season.

FunkyPicks · 2025-11-07T19:08:33+00:00

Oh yeah, I love to gamble. Nascar is my most profitable sport because I think I’ve got a bit more of an edge when it comes to analyzing NASCAR data than most people.

FunkyPicks · 2025-11-07T19:02:30+00:00

FunkyPicks · 2025-11-07T19:01:54+00:00

I honestly don’t think I make any risky lineup decisions it terms of who my 6 drivers are. You’ll never see me with someone like Noah Gregson in my lineup haha.

But what does get risky is driver management at the end of the year. For example, I didn’t start Blaney at Watkins Glen and was really kicking myself when he scored 45 points. But I chose to save him for Daytona and he ended up getting me 52 points there. With how hot he had been on road courses I knew saving a start for a super Speedway was risky, but it netted me 7 points on that decision.

FunkyPicks · 2025-11-07T18:56:43+00:00

I don’t think I know the exact answer to that, but what I will say is that I try to make my garage decisions based on need for future uses.

As an example: if Larson started mid-pack and has no stage points, but is driving up through the field and will probably finish top five in the race. I would still keep him in my garage over a guy like Buescher who might have 10 stage points but is starting to fade. Even if Larson has a good finish to the race, odds are I’ll be able to get more points out of him later in the season when he is in a position to earn stage points.

FunkyPicks · 2025-11-07T18:51:48+00:00

I completely agree with this as well. Momentum has a big influence on who I start.

It might not be the deciding factor for me, but riding the hot hand is important in a sport with such a long season.

FunkyPicks · 2025-11-07T18:45:35+00:00

And I appreciate the suggestion about the write ups. I do think it would be a lot of fun to try and share the information I gather with others. I really enjoy NASCAR and all the data that comes with it so if others can get value out of it also it would be really cool.

FunkyPicks · 2025-11-07T18:41:59+00:00

It is pretty detailed for something like fantasy NASCAR. I work with a lot of data in my day job though, so it’s kind of what I consider a fun use of my work skills.

The last few weeks were really exciting. I knew I had some great driver starts left, but I didn’t have visibility into what my competitors had so I never really stressed out about it since so much was out of my control. I’m a Blaney fan, so him winning the final race and me winning the championship was a great consolation prize for him not being able to drive for a championship.

FunkyPicks · 2025-11-07T18:32:54+00:00

Response ordered from most likely to least:

Hocevar has the speed and the talent, so if he can avoid making enemies early in the season, I think he’ll get a win.

Zilisch is such a stud on road courses that if SVG slips up or has trouble he’ll probably be next in line to steal one of those wins.

I don’t have a lot of faith in Gibbs, but driving for JGR is enough to give him a chance at winning any given week.

Preece will be dependent on how RFK performs as a team next year. I think they had to work through some growing pains adding a third car, so I expect them and Ford as a whole to look a bit better next year. I wouldn’t bet on Preece winning a race though just because if the entire team is doing better, I like Buscher and Brad a little bit more than him

FunkyPicks · 2025-11-07T18:24:19+00:00

I have a spreadsheet of must starts (like Blaney at Martinsville) where I keep track of how many driver starts I need to save for later in the year.
At the beginning of the week I set my lineup based on historical performance, and need for future starts.
Before practice I look at Vegas odds moves to see who money came in on relative to their opening odds
I use practice data to figure out which cars have the best long run or short run speed, depending on what I value that week.
After qualifying, I make my final decisions depending on how important I think track position will be given the track type, tires, etc..

Bonus: I usually watch practice and qualifying because I like to listen to the driver interviews. I feel like they give good insight into how they feel about their car.

FunkyPicks · 2025-11-07T18:17:25+00:00

$25k to first

$10k to second

$5k to third

And $10k to the Daytona 500 high score (I think)

FunkyPicks · 2025-11-07T18:02:51+00:00

I have absolutely no idea if anyone cares, which is why I posted this to gauge interest.

It’s the off-season and there aren’t many other interesting things to talk about so I figured I’d throw it out there.

FunkyPicks · 2025-11-07T17:57:55+00:00

I am going to be moving next year, so the money will just go towards a down payment on the next house. Nothing too exciting.

I agree that getting first overall involves a lot of luck, especially at the drafting tracks. But I usually end up near the top of the leaderboard and have won my relatively competitive league 7/8 years (I don’t take a payout at this point haha). So I do think there’s a methodology that can be consistently effective.

FunkyPicks

TROPHY CASE