All seven of the One Bad Wheel writers recently took part in an eight-team fantasy draft. Below is a summary of the draft, plus thoughts from each of owner. We will be competing against one another in this league all season, so stay tuned for future updates.
League Settings:
-Four drivers per team: two starters, two benched
-Scoring is based on the Sprint Cup scoring system
-Bonuses: leading the most laps (10 points), leading a lap (5), fastest lap in the race (3), win from the pole (3), DNF (-5)
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Eric Brewer [Brewdaddy Racing]
Round 1 – Carl Edwards (1)
Round 2 – Kasey Kahne (16)
Round 3 – Brian Vickers (17)
Round 4 – Travis Kvapil (32)
The fantasy community seems to be split nearly 50/50 on if Jimmie Johnson or Carl Edwards should be taken No. 1 in the draft. What was the biggest factor in your decision on selecting Edwards and how easy was it to make?
The biggest factor for me in taking Edwards was to keep him off everyone else’s team. There are some races I feel like that some of my other drivers might do better at than the #99, so he will ride the bench those races. I’m just glad that I am not racing against him. It was easy. Picking second or third would have been tough for me.
This was my first draft, I didn’t know what to expect, so I went through a few mock drafts. I guess if I had the second pick I would have picked Kyle Busch, simply because he looks a point magnet under the scoring system. Also, I could probably start him every race.
Selecting first also means the longest wait to pick again. How do think that turned out?
I don’t feel like I got screwed in the draft, I picked Kasey Kahne and Brian Vickers to make the Chase, so I’m cool with them. I wish I had a deeper bench and my last pick was a little bit better. I drafted Travis Kvapil and dropped him for Reed Sorenson directly after the draft. The main thing about my picks is that I wanted ALL my picks to be in the top 35.
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James Jones [Team Jones]
Round 1 – Jimmie Johnson (2)
Round 2 – Ryan Newman (15)
Round 3 – Bobby Labonte (18)
Round 4 – AJ Allmendinger (31)
Your third-round selection, Bobby Labonte, seemed to earn you a lot of jeers in the draft room. Over the last two seasons, he has zero top-fives and only five top-10s. Care to defend your pick?
I thought I was picking Terry Labonte! No, seriously. This season, Labonte should have better equipment with Hall of Fame Racing when compared to last year with Petty Enterprises. Labonte looks and sounds excited, he has given interviews and claims to be more enthused and motivated this year than he has in quite a while. The champion’s provisional rule will keep him in the field. Labonte is respected on the track, races clean and normally is raced clean. Also, DNFs are somewhat rare for him. Sometimes a change of scenery can do wonders; I anticipate consistent finishes inside the top-20 from Labonte.
Any other thoughts on your draft strategy?
While a driver’s past statistics do, and should, play a role in my driver selection process, I also believe in things such as karma, a driver’s enthusiasm, character, and even just plain ol’ gut feeling when I compare to the other drivers left.
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Eric McClung [Team McClung]
Round 1 – Kyle Busch (3)
Round 2 – Clint Bowyer (14)
Round 3 – Joey Logano (19)
Round 4 – Scott Speed (30)
Joey Logano and Scott Speed are both rookies, does the inexperience on your bench concern you?
Yes, but not that much. I got Kyle Busch and Clint Bowyer in the first two rounds so I felt really good about where I stood going into the second half of the draft. Busch was terrific for much of last season and, although he hasn’t taken that step to becoming an elite driver, Bowyer has been very consistent.
With that pairing, I felt I could roll the dice on Logano and see what the kid does. Had I selected David Ragan in the second round, who I had been targeting, I probably would have been complied to take a more seasoned guy like Kurt Busch, Brian Vickers or Casey Mears in the third round. If he starts off strong, I could always cash out and trade him or swap him out for Bowyer. I can’t see myself ever sitting Busch.
With one of the last selections, I thought Speed was a great pick. He’s got a lot of upside and I really like the progress that the Red Bull Racing Team has been making. A.J. Allmendinger has a lot of potential, but he’s a part-timer so I took his replacement. If Speed does not work out, I can always scout the waiver wire.
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Darren Fauth [NASCAR Geek]
Round 1 – Jeff Gordon (4)
Round 2 – David Ragan (13)
Round 3 – Kurt Busch (20)
Round 4 – Marcos Ambrose (29)
Once you took David Ragan’s name off the board, the draft room seemed to explode with envy (myself included). Why couldn’t you have taken Clint Bowyer instead?
Haha. It was the luck of the timing for my pick. It was pick No. 13 of the draft and that is about right for when Ragan would get picked. I know Bowyer was there. He is a known entity. He should, barring issues with having a new crew chief and team, finish in the top-12. We know Bowyer is pretty consistent. He had no DNF’s last year. But with Ragan, I’ve got a gut-feeling that he could break out this year and win a couple of races and make the Chase. It seems, between the two, that Ragan was more attractive to potentially have a better pay-off, if the hunch is right. Besides, I think that Jimmy Fenning is a super-duper grade A crew chief and cheer leader. We saw what he did with Kurt Busch.
Since winning the title in 2004, Kurt Busch’s top-fives have declined in each season. Any worries?
Yeah. Historically, Kurt does great when I have him benched and terrible when I have him active. I think I will keep him as my reserve guy and only pull him out when he is at a track that the stats show he does well at, even in the midst of a crappy year. I’ll run him at Pocono, road courses and maybe even the restrictor plates.