{"id":534959,"date":"2026-03-14T02:10:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T02:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/534959\/"},"modified":"2026-03-14T02:10:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T02:10:09","slug":"nascar-fantasy-fusion-pennzoil-400-presented-by-jiffy-lube-at-las-vegas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/534959\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR Fantasy Fusion: Pennzoil 400 presented by Jiffy Lube at Las Vegas"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0
\n<\/a><\/p>\n

There’s nothing like a Ryan Blaney win, especially when the No. 12 team has issues that force him to drive through the field more than once. Blaney earned his 18th NASCAR Cup Series win at Phoenix Raceway last Sunday after two loose wheels and passing 49 cars. It was his second victory at Phoenix and Team Penske’s 157th win in the NASCAR Cup Series. This weekend should be a good gauge for where the Chevys are, as they typically run well here. Stay tuned.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

This Week’s Pick Strategy:
I’m going with a pretty straightforward strategy this week. I’m packing my roster with mostly proven elites and weighing heavily on those drivers with pole-winning potential to earn me extra fantasy points. I’ll be using practice and qualifying as my final picks data points. I think the winner will come from the top 5 cars on the grid.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Active NASCAR Cup Drivers with the Most Top 10s:<\/p>\n

\nBy Race and Track in the Gen 7 Car (Last 8 races – 2022 to 2025)<\/p>\n

All with 6 – Kyle Larson, William Byron and Ross Chastain
All with 5 – Christopher Bell, Denny Hamlin, Tyler Reddick and Alex Bowman
Both with 4 – Joey Logano and Kyle Busch<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Active NASCAR Cup Drivers with the Most Top 5s:<\/p>\n

\nBy Race and Track in the Gen 7 Car (Last 8 races – 2022 to 2025)
Both with 5 – Kyle Larson and Ross Chastain<\/p>\n

Both with 4 – William Byron and Christopher Bell\u00a0<\/p>\n

Both with 3 – Alex Bowman and\u00a0Kyle Busch<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Active Las Vegas Race Winners<\/p>\n

Wins<\/p>\n

Seasons<\/p>\n

Joey Logano<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 4\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0 2024, 2022, 2020, 2019\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n

Brad
\n Keselowski<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a03<\/p>\n

2018,
\n 2016, 2014<\/p>\n

Kyle Larson<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a03<\/p>\n

2024, 2023,
\n 2021<\/p>\n

Denny Hamlin<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 2<\/p>\n

2025,
\n 2021<\/p>\n

Josh Berry<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a01<\/p>\n

2025<\/p>\n

William Byron<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 1<\/p>\n

2023<\/p>\n

Alex Bowman<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 1<\/p>\n

2022<\/p>\n

Kyle
\n Busch<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 1<\/p>\n

2009<\/p>\n

Source: NASCAR.com <\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Last Year’s Pole Winner:\u00a0Michael McDowell<\/p>\n

Last Year’s Race Winner:\u00a0Joey Logano<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Likely Suspects:\u00a0 My Las Vegas go-to drivers include\u00a0Kyle Larson,\u00a0William Byron, Joey Logano, Christopher Bell,\u00a0Denny Hamlin, Alex Bowman,\u00a0Ross Chastain,\u00a0Kyle Busch,\u00a0Brad Keselowski\u00a0and Ryan Blaney.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

My 2 Cents:\u00a0
\n My no-brainer pick is a tie between Kyle Larson and William Byron. My next picks are Joey Logano,\u00a0Ross Chastain, Brad Keselowski and Kyle Busch. I will round
\nout my roster with Carson Hocevar and Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
\nMy Final Four:\u00a0Kyle Larson, Joey Logano, Kyle Busch and Carson Hocevar.<\/p>\n

Second-Look Driver:
\n This week’s second-look driver is Ryan Preece who is pretty sporty at 1.5-mile tracks. Last year, Preece earned 179 points at the bread-and-butter tracks, which tied him with his RFK
\nteammate, Chris Buescher, for 11th best in the NASCAR Cup Series.\u00a0He earned a majority of those points at the two races at Las Vegas
\nMotor Speedway, where he scored a third-place finish in the spring race
\nand placed ninth in the first race of the second round of the Playoffs. In all, Preece has six Top 10s in the last eight 1.5-mile
\nraces. He currently sits 18th in the NASCAR Cup Series driver standings, and could surpass the bossman–Brad Keselowski, now in 16th–with a good finish.<\/p>\n

Points to Ponder:<\/p>\n

Joe Gibbs Racing leads the NASCAR Cup Series in poles at Las Vegas Motor Speedway with nine poles among five drivers.\u00a0The second starting position has produced more winners than any other in the field with seven (19.4%). Hendrick Motorsports leads the NASCAR Cup
\nSeries in wins at Las Vegas Motor Speedway with nine, followed by Team Penske and RFK Racing tied with seven each.Four
\n manufacturers have visited Victory Lane in the NASCAR Cup Series at Las
\n Vegas Motor Speedway, led by Ford with 16 victories and Chevrolet with 13.Kyle Larson (2017, 2018, 2022, 2023, 2025) leads the
\nNASCAR Cup Series in runner-up finishes at Las Vegas with five second-place finishes.Kyle Busch leads the NASCAR Cup Series in
\n Top-5 finishes at Las Vegas Motor Speedway with 12 and in Top 10s with 16.Kyle Larson leads all active drivers in the NASCAR Cup Series at Las Vegas Motor Speedway with an average finish of 9.0 in 19 starts. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

If
\n you are playing Driver Group Game, remember to make your initial picks
\nby\u00a0Saturday, March 14 at 2:30 p.m. ET \u00a0and your final picks by 4 p.m. ET on race day, Sunday, March 15th.<\/p>\n

Enjoy the race!<\/p>\n

________________________________________________________\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/a>Carol D’Agostino has been playing Fantasy NASCAR for 19 years. She launched NASCAR
\nFantasy Fusion for Skirts & Scuffs in October 2011. Each week, Carol
\n pores through statistics and combs through her personal notebooks to
\narm fans with analysis
\nand picking strategies that will leave their friends wondering how they
\ngot so
\nsmart. Carol also does race coverage for Skirts & Scuffs at Richmond
\nRaceway and occasionally at her home track, Dover International
\nSpeedway. She is
\nalso part of the distinguished NASCAR Expert Picks panel at frcs.pro<\/a>. formerly called Fantasy Racing Cheat Sheet. When she isn\u2019t wielding her fantasy-racing superpowers, you\u2019ll find
\nCarol hammering out a news release or creating a marketing strategy at a
\n small niche public relations firm she founded called Purple Cat or
\nexecuting downtown revitalization projects for a small town on
\nMaryland\u2019s Eastern Shore. \u00a0
\n\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u00a0 There’s nothing like a Ryan Blaney win, especially when the No. 12 team has issues that force…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":534960,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82,168927],"class_list":["post-534959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nascar","tag-sports","tag-your-keywords-here"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=534959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534959\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/534960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=534959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=534959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=534959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}