Carl Edwards, Kurt Busch & Kasey Kahne: The Keys to a Nascar (Fantasy) Championship

Ladies and Gentlemen, Start Your Engines. Nascar starts this week with their Super Bowl, the Daytona 500, and do you know what that means????

At the risk of being ridiculed by my massive readership, I am in a NASCAR fantasy league for the third straight year. I do this league for a few simple reasons. First, I worked on NASCAR stuff for General Mills when I worked there so this is an easy way to keep up with it. Second, besides baseball and college hoops, there is not a lot worth paying attention to in the sports world before football heats up in like August. And finally, now that I have the blog, what better reading material for you than a re-cap of draft proceedings.

We have 8 guys in our league: KMart (the redneck Nascar super fan who did a Nascar preview for this blog), JPL, James "don't call me Osama" Mills, Bangle, Immel, Cobes, and Jimmy B, in addition to myself. When nobody sent out any correspondence on the league by Wednesday, with Daytona and the opening of the Nascar season only 5 days away, KMart started convulsing like a snake with its head cut off and sent out an email, practically begging everyone to do the league again, and even offering to do the dreaded commissioner duties (the lesson, of course, is if you wait KMart out, he will do all the work).

All 8 guys agree to do the league again. Kmart, thinking he is being helpful, publishes suggested rules, including a draft order that is based on inverse finish from last year. As you might guess, under that scenario, I would be picking 2nd! However, it is a big disadvantage to be picking early in the draft (just trust me...you do not want the details). So I make a stink about not wanting to pick second, and that I should be helped, not hurt for finishing so poorly last year. So of course this starts two days of half hearted debate. After enough whining, I get my way, and the draft order is set as follows: Jimmy B, KMart, Mills, Cobes, Dils, Bangle, JPL, Immel.

This is all great except for one slight problem. After Tony Stewart and a few others, I have no idea who the best drivers in Nascar are, as evidenced by my 7th place finish last year. So I quickly pulled two lists from Sports Illustrated and espn.com. The problem with these lists is that neither went beyond 20 spots. With this in mind, you should expect me to ask questions like this in the 4th and 5th rounds: Is Cale Yarborough still available?

Jimmy B opens with Tony Stewart, which seems like a good pick since he won the whole thing last year. At that point, you could actually see KMart start hyperventilating as he got to pick Jimmie Johnson, the man on whom he has had a non-sexual (I think non-sexual) crush for several years. Mills then selects Jeff Gordon, which also seems sensible to me. This all goes into my plan, as it looks like I will get my man Greg Biffle, the guy I would have taken with the second pick, with the 5th pick, and I will be set up much better for later rounds. With the 4th pick, Cobes takes....Greg Biffle. And you wonder why he managed to finish behind me last year.

I first ask if we can go back to the original drafting order. After a motion to kick me out of the league fails by a thin margin, I need to make a pick. I am now of course screwed. My two collective lists have Carl Edwards as the next guy by a wide margin. I know these guys who did these lists know a lot more about Nascar than me (and maybe even more than KMart), but I just know Carl Edwards, who has been doing stuff like dating Amanda Beard and filming guest appearances in my favorite show '24', is due for a huge sophomore slump (I know technically he was a rookie in '04, but '05 was his first full year). I can only hope some of Jack Bauer's magic rubbed off on him....I pick Carl Edwards.

Earnhardt went next, and I was quick to pounce with my "Senior or Junior?" joke. I may have picked him 5th instead of Edwards, but I wanted to be sure I could use the joke! After Earnhardt, Newman, Martin, Kenseth, McMurray, and Elliot Sadler get picked, putting me back on the clock. Of course the next guy no my list is one of those Ricky Watters-types, a cancer in the locker room than can just destroy a team from the inside: Kurt Busch. But, since I am from Philly and I could openly root for T.O., I of course quickly snap up Busch, telling the guys in my league that the inside talk around the garage is that Busch is expected to return to the championship form he showed two years ago. Everybody, of course, ignored me.

After that, Cobes was trying to copy me so he picked Kurt Busch's brother, who was followed by Mayfield and Dale Jarrett. After that Harvick was the last pick in the 2nd round followed by Jeff Burton as the first pick in the 3rd. KMart took Mears next, to which I broke out the "Casey, not Rick?" joke. Clearly at this point everybody would like to re-vote on whether they have to keep me in the league at this point. On a more important note, only two more picks until I have to pick yet another driver that none of you have heard of. Please let either Vickers or Kahne last to my pick. Please, please, please....

Mills takes Brian Vickers......UGH! Cobes will surely take Kasey Kahne, there is nobody else even close. When he takes Kahne, I will have to go for either Bobby Labonte, the driver for the kiss of death General Mills Cheerios Team #43, or one of two rookies, Hamlin, or Truex, Jr. (now that they have a rule that everybody in DEI must be a Junior). Cobes somehow takes Denny Hamlin, leaving me with Kasey Kahne. Now that I got him here, I start asking, "what is wrong with him? How come nobody else wanted him?"

Well, now the draft gets basically put on hold while we wait over an hour for Bangle, who must be enjoying a leisurely lunch at the same restaurant where Belushi and Aykroyd go to get the Maitre D to re-join the band...by the way, quick trivia, do you know that Pee Wee Herrmann, when he was just Paul Reubens, is in that scene as their bus boy. Great stuff). Hopefuly Bangle enjoyed his Shrimp Cocktail, and asked at least one table, "How much for the women, how much for the little girl?"

Bangle takes Truex, Jr. Then JPL takes the best quote in any sport since Joaquin Andujar was manning the hill for the Cardinals back in the '80s, Michael Waltrip. Just a joy to watch a Michael Waltrip interview. Almost worth watching a race so he can get niterviewed after he crashes on lap 53...then Robby Gordon goes, putting me back on the clock. So I take Scott Riggs, who is ranked 22nd on my list that actually gives some honorable mention votes. Well, the list must have been written before Daytona qualifying, as it turns out my new team member Riggs will be cheerleading and not racing in Daytona -- he did not make the race. Ugh!

The next few picks featured many household names: Yeley, Blaney, Schrader. After that, we hit another brick wall as Jimmy B is nowhere to be found. But who really cares at this point. The only real mystery for me is whether I will actually draft myself with my last pick. Look for my boys to rock at Daytona this weekend and throughout the year. After all, I cam into this thing praying I could somehow end up with Carl Edwards, Kurt Busch and Kasey Kahne.

Let's go Racin'......Boogety, boogety, boogety.