Heck of a start for Dale Earnhardt Jr. in winning the Budweiser Shootout. He kicked butt and answered the bell. It might be preseason but a win is a win. The whole Hendricks team worked well together and will lead the rest this year again. The joy on Junior's face in winner's circle said it all. Finally he can focus on racing more.

Side note to Theresa Earnhardt:
See, how hard is it to be there to support your drivers by being there?

Did Fantasy Nascar start with the Bud Shoot Out?

No, it starts with the Daytona 500.

I must make one thing clear to all the players. Since I have included the Nationwide cars, I must tell you about their qualifying. They always qualify on the day they race. Usually in the mornings and race that afternoon or evening. So on Saturday (or Friday sometimes) after they qualify in the morning, I will immediately put up their qualifying order. You have about three hours (most of the time) to get your picks in. So you must look here on Saturday late morning or early afternoon and make your picks. If you don't, then you will get your last pick you made.

So for the record, I will post both race line-ups at the same time. You don't really have to pick in both right then, just the Nationwide. To make it look fair, you must put your picks here in the forums for both races. That way no one can think I allowed a pick after the race started. (That mainly applies to the Nationwide picks)

Any questions?

I have a small question.Since some drivers opt in or out of driving both series, can we as players in this fantasy league opt out of nationwide races? I ask because I work saturday days and getting a pick in might be difficult unless I guess bfore qualifying however, I do wish to participate in the phone services series so count me in and glad the league is back!!! Thank you

Well Matt, if you want to opt out on the Nationwide, you can. Or you could just pick driver before qualifying. Or you could just pick one driver for the whole season if you want. If you don't make a pick in there, then I won't add your name in there. Right now I am just trying to see if I can do both series. This same day qualifying might be too hard to do and I will just have to forget about doing both. If you want to only do the Sprint series, we can. Anybody want to just do the Sprint series?

Ray Bradbury said: "If we listened to our intellect, we'd never have a love affair. We'd never have a friendship. We'd never go into business, because we'd be too cynical. Well, that's nonsense. You've got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down."

So lets take the challenge and try to move forward. There is no prizes just a stimulating situation of racing and picking who you think might be a winner. I say lets go for it all or go home.

We will see how this weekend goes. I will only put up the qualifying order for the Nationwide since I can't get stats for each individual race for the drivers in Nationwide.

Question for you all. Do any of you care about the stats for the drivers in the Sprint series? Or should I only put the qualifying order?

The qualifying in Nationwide won't mean much to me until I know who is who. I'll just pick on Fridays or something based on something other than qualifying. Maybe something like current standings will mean more and I will just pick someone from the top 10 until I learn more. Probably drivers that also run in Sprint will get my picks. I wish they wouldn't race both series but for now I know the dual duty drivers do best in Nationwide.

I like reading the stats on the Sprint drivers. They didn't help my picks last year but they are cool to read. I imagine past stats on races like Daytona won't mean much since it is a new car. I do consider the past in picking Sprint drivers. The better drivers are likely to dominate in the new car since they can adapt better.

A roster of drivers in the national series would help me pick prior to qualifying, and I to like the stats for the nascar series.