Fantasy Preview: Atlanta

The Sprint Cup Series makes its now once a year stop at the Atlanta Motor Speedway this weekend and will again be dodging tropical weather. Last year, Tropical Storm Lee thrashed the Hampton, GA area and the race was postponed from not just its Sunday night start time, but it also could not be run on Labor Day the following day and was forced to a very rare Tuesday race that still had to avoid some rain. Hurricane Isaac will now possibly pose a threat to this year's version of the race, so keep your fingers crossed.

Fantasy Preview: Atlanta

The Favorites:

Jeff Gordon: With all of the intangibles that now come with this race, it's hard to find a consistent pattern in any of the drivers here over the last few years. It's a pretty easy choice to put Gordon on this list though, not only because he's the defending winner of this race, but he's run extremely well for the most part in the last five years here, with only two finishes outside of the top-10. Plus, he needs a good run to make the Chase, so he'll be motivated.

Tony Stewart: He won this race two years ago and though Stewart can be successful one week and off the next, Atlanta is one of his more sure fire places having collected 3 wins here and has 15 top-10's. And he finished third in this race last year which isn't too shabby at all.

Jimmie Johnson: He too owns three wins at Atlanta and was runner-up to Gordon in this race last year. When this track used to be in the Chase, everyone knew it was Johnson's race to lose and he rarely finished out of the top-10 in that time. 

The Darkhorses:

Juan Pablo Montoya: Arguably his best oval track, Montoya should've won this race a few times, but just couldn't seal the deal. With that being said, he still has three top-5's at the track, all of which have happened in the last four years. He's worth the pick up.

Jeff Burton: He hasn't had much luck this year, but he has been running well the last few weeks and Atlanta has been a good track to Burton over his career. Though he doesn't have a win, Burton has 14 top-10's here including finishing fourth in this race two years ago. Like Montoya, he's cheap and would be worth the buy.

Marcos Ambrose: He only has one career top-10 here in four years of racing, but he's on a hot streak at the moment. Not to mention, he's run extremely well on fast tracks this year and Atlanta is one of the fastest tracks NASCAR races on. He's a good risk.

Stay Away From:

Joey Logano: In five career races at this track, Logano has not recorded a finish better than 22nd at the track which is laughable. He hasn't been running well lately either. He's not worth the risk at all this week.

Martin Truex Jr.: He runs extremely well at Texas, which is a similar counterpart to Atlanta. But whatever he's found at Texas hasn't translated to Atlanta where he has a best finish of 8th and has found no consistency at the track.

Regan Smith: He's been finding recent success with his new crew chief, but I don't believe they'll mesh at Atlanta this weekend where Smith has yet to score a top-10. And he only has a best finish of 17th at Atlanta.