Post-Race Fast Facts: Zippo 200

Race Fast Facts
Watkins Glen International
23rd Annual Zippo 200 at The Glen

Race Winner: Kyle Busch
Age: 32
Team: No. 18 - NOS Rowdy Toyota
Owner: J.D. Gibbs
Crew Chief: Eric Phillips

Kyle Busch won the 23rd Annual Zippo 200 at The Glen, his 90th victory in 336 NASCAR XFINITY Series races. This is his fourth victory and seventh top-10 finish in 2017. This is his first victory and seventh top-10 finish in ten races at Watkins Glen International.

Joey Logano (second) posted his seventh top-10 finish in ten races at Watkins Glen International. It is his seventh top-10 finish in 2017.

Brad Keselowski (third) posted his eighth top-10 finish in nine races at Watkins Glen International.

William Byron (10th) was the highest finishing rookie.

Elliott Sadler leads the point standings by 52 points over William Byron #.

Kyle Busch finishes eighth at Auto Club

Kyle Busch finished eighth in the Auto Club 400 after starting the event ninth.

Busch challenged for the win in the closing laps, but pushed a little too hard while battling Kyle Larson. He slipped up out of the groove and was overhauled by a several drivers, but this race was important nevertheless because it allowed him to get back inside the top 10 at Auto Club. He had crash damage in this race last year to finish 25th and that snapped a four-race streak of top-fives.

Kyle Busch second best at RIR during last three years

Kyle Busch has a current five-race streak of top-15s at Richmond International Raceway, which gives him an average finish of 6.0.

That is the second-best three-year average finish of fulltime drivers who have made more than two starts at this track in that span. Busch has two runner-up finishes and a third in those events, but he is more than capable of winning. In his 23-race career on this course, he has four wins. All of these came in the spring and the latest was in 2012. That is going to make him a popular pick this April in the Toyota Owners 400.

Kyle Busch Profile

via Dan Beaver/RotoWorld.

Kyle Busch has always been an all or nothing driver. He wins a lot of races in each of NASCAR’s Big Three divisions because he is willing and able to ride on the ragged edge. He stays right on that line 80 percent of the time, but since NASCAR implemented a 10-race playoff format to decide a champion, one or two trips into the wall at the wrong part of the season was often all it took to eliminate a driver from contention.

Matters only got worse with the four playoff rounds that currently mark the end. The impact of an accident is multiplied threefold, but Busch has either been incredibly lucky or he has figured out how to reign himself in during the final 10 races.

Last year, Busch crashed and failed to finish four races. These came at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Dover International Speedway, and in both Bristol Motor Speedway events—but none of those were in the playoffs. He sustained crash damage but was running at the end of four other races. One of these was in round two of the Chase at Charlotte, but he managed to minimize the damage and finished sixth. Coupled with a fifth at Kansas Speedway, that allowed him to ride around in the back of the pack at Talladega SuperSpeedway to purposefully stay out of trouble.

NASCAR’s new points’ structure is going to throw everyone a curveball. Depending on when Busch sustains damage in a race, he could fail to be competitive at key junctures and that might hurt his ability to earn enough points to advance all the way to the third round. Busch is likely to win during the regular season and get an automatic advancement, however; and in most fantasy games, the bulk of points will still be paid at the end of regulation. That is where Busch has shown his greatest strength and it is likely he will continue.

Busch was incredible in 2015 and 2016. He won the championship two years ago and earned top-fives in 47 percent of his races last year. In fact, he swept the top five on five occasions and the top 10 twice more on 13 tracks that host two races. That means players should concentrate their starts in the second half of the season on courses where he ran well in the spring.

Currently, there are only two active tracks on which Busch has not won in NASCAR’s top division. Look for this team to put a lot of effort into Charlotte and Pocono Raceway in 2017 so that he can add those trophies to his mantelpiece.

Victories: Martinsville (spring), Texas (spring), Kansas (spring), and Indy
Top-fives: 17 (.472)
Top-10s: 25 (.694)
Top-15s: 27 (.750) 

Track	3-Yr Avg. Fin	Career Avg. Fin	Best Fin	Career Attempts	Career Top-10s	Race 1	Race 2
Indianapolis Motor Speedway	1.33	9.00	1	12	10	1
Texas Motor Speedway +	3.40	13.00	1	24	12	1	5
Kentucky Speedway	5.00	5.17	1	6	5	12
Kansas Speedway +	5.80	18.44	1	18	6	1	5
Richmond International Raceway *	6.00	6.96	1	23	17	2	9
Martinsville Speedway +	7.20	14.09	1	23	12	1	5
Las Vegas Motor Speedway	7.50	13.50	1	12	6	4
Chicagoland Speedway	8.00	11.08	1	12	7	8
Darlington Raceway	8.00	12.83	1	12	7	11
Atlanta Motor Speedway	9.50	15.22	1	18	6	3
New Hampshire Motor Speedway *	9.83	15.00	1	25	13	8	3
Phoenix International Raceway +	10.00	12.87	1	23	15	4	2
Sonoma Raceway	11.00	18.08	1	12	4	7
Auto Club Speedway	13.00	10.94	1	18	12	25
Homestead - Miami Speedway	13.25	19.83	1	12	5	6
Daytona International Speedway +	13.80	17.52	1	24	8	3	2
Charlotte Motor Speedway	14.00	15.46	2	26	15	33	6
Watkins Glen International	16.00	10.08	1	12	10	6
Talladega SuperSpeedway	19.00	21.30	1	23	6	2	30
Dover Downs International	20.33	14.71	1	24	15	30	2
Pocono Raceway	20.67	18.54	2	24	9	31	9
Bristol Motor Speedway	30.00	14.26	1	23	13	38	39
Michigan International Speedway	32.17	20.42	1	25	6	40	19

+ Top-five sweeps
* Top-10 sweeps

Who is a wiser up pick for Fontana, Kyle Busch or Paul Menard?

By @GucciardoJoey

This weekend, the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series heads to Fontana for the final race of the 2016 "West Coast Swing."

Auto Club Speedway (which is located in Fontana) cabn be rough to make Sprint Cup fantasy team picks because it is an intermediate track where tons of drivers like Joey Logano, Denny Hamlin, and Jimmie Johnson, and many others perform well at.

But when it comes to average finish at the track since 2014, Kyle Busch has the best one with one of first place, even though he has only ran one race at the track since then because he missed the 2015 race at the track due to an injury. Kyle's older brother Kurt Busch is second with one of 3rd in two races at the track since 2014.

But when you keep track of who has the best average finish at all intermediate tracks on the Sprint Cup circuit since 2014, Paul Menard has the best average finish witgh one of 6.8. Dale Earnhardt Jr. is second with one of 7.0.

Paul Menard could be seen as a wise pick for this weekend because of the fact that he can run well at intermediate tracjks, but because Kyle usually runs more in contention in many races than Menard, and has won at Auto Club while Menard has not, Kyle Busch is more of a wise pick for Fontana than Menard.

TRUCKS: Kyle Busch is wise pick for Daytona

By @GucciardoJoey

It's safe to say that recently, Kyle Busch has dominated Daytona in the Camping World Truck Series.

Since February 2014, Busch has an average finish in the Truck Series at Daytona of 1st place, which is amazing, considering that Busch performs extremely well in a NASCAR Truck at any racing venue.

Erik Jones has the second-highest average finish at the track with one of 2nd place. Scott Lagasse Jr. is 3rd on the list with an average finish of 3rd.

DRIVER AVERAGES: Top 30 Camping World Truck Averages at Daytona (since Feb 2014)

Driver Avg Finish Races  Wins Top 5's Top 10's Laps Led  1 Kyle Busch 1.00 1 1 1 1 25 2 Erik Jones 2.00 1 0 1 1 0 3 Scott Lagasse Jr. 3.00 1 0 1 1 0 4 Austin Theriault 4.00 1 0 1 1 9 5 Ryan Truex 4.00 1 0 1 1 0 6 Ray Black Jr. 5.00 1 0 1 1 0 7 Ron Hornaday Jr. 5.00 1 0 1 1 0 8 Ryan Blaney 6.00 1 0 0 1 0 9 David Gilliland 6.00 1 0 0 1 1 10 Tyler Reddick 6.50 2 1 1 1 46 11 Johnny Sauter 6.50 2 0 1 2 0 12 Jeb Burton 7.00 1 0 0 1 0 13 Jimmy Weller III 9.00 1 0 0 1 0 14 Daniel Suarez 9.00 1 0 0 1 5 15 German Quiroga 10.00 1 0 0 1 0 16 Matt Crafton 10.50 2 0 0 1 1 17 Ryan Sieg 11.00 1 0 0 0 0 18 Ty Dillon 11.00 1 0 0 0 37 19 Bryan Silas 12.00 2 0 0 1 0 20 Korbin Forrister 12.00 1 0 0 0 0 21 Timothy Peters 13.00 2 0 1 1 20 22 Joe Nemechek 14.00 2 0 0 1 0 23 Justin Jennings 16.00 1 0 0 0 0 24 Norm Benning 17.00 2 0 0 0 0 25 Ryan Ellis 17.00 2 0 0 0 0 26 James Buescher 17.00 1 0 0 0 0 27 John Wes Townley 18.00 2 0 0 0 0 28 Travis Kvapil 18.50 2 0 0 0 3 29 Matt Tifft 19.00 1 0 0 0 0 30 Jennifer Jo Cobb 19.50 2 0 0 0 0