The fourth race of the 2024 NASCAR season will take place on Sunday, March 10th. With a new short track package, 36 cars will take to the one-mile Arizona circuit at 3:30 pm ET (12:30 pm PT) on FOX<\/a>. Radio listeners can catch the action on the Motor Racing Network<\/a> and SiriusXM’s NASCAR Radio<\/a>.<\/p>\n NASCAR Fantasy Live<\/a>\u00a0gives fans the chance to partake in driver selection each Cup Series race weekend. One will pick five starters and one \u201cgarage\u201d driver per event. The garage driver will not receive any points but acts as a replacement for a starter who may face trouble in the first part of the race. At the end of stage two, picks will lock and no changes can be made. Points are awarded based on stage points and finishing positions in addition to four \u201chead-to-head\u201d driver picks. A driver may only be picked ten (10) times across the 26-race Regular Season and then five (5) times in the 10-race Playoffs.<\/p>\n See NASCAR\u2019s website\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0for rules of how to play.<\/p>\n My recommendations are NOT my guaranteed lineup for Sunday. Here are my NASCAR Fantasy suggestions for the 2024 Shriners Children’s 500. Also, see my results from last weekend’s Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.<\/p>\n Who else should take the top spot other than Kyle Larson<\/strong>? Last weekend at Las Vegas, the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports driver dominated en route to his 24th career NASCAR Cup Series victory. He will enter this weekend as a top favorite in search of his 25th.<\/p>\n The Copper State has treated Larson well. Winning last year’s March race was nearly in his grasp until a late-race caution with three laps to go. He won the 2021 Championship by taking the checkered flag<\/a>, and a third in 2023’s finale was his eighth finish of fourth or better in 19 trips to Phoenix. When looking at Next Gen races, Larson has averaged 12.25 stage points per race with a Top 10 in all eight stages. Although he will start 17th, the pick is a must.<\/p>\n Defending Series Champion<\/a>\u00a0Ryan Blaney\u00a0<\/strong>has a knack for the Phoenix asphalt. Although he did not win in his title-crowning run, his performance was nothing short of impressive. His track stats see five consecutive finishes inside the Top 5 with nine of ten stage appearances. In the last four, he had led the most laps (254) of active divers.<\/p>\n Blaney has finished third or better in five of the last six NASCAR races. Although this streak will come to an end at some point, I do not envision a dip in performance this weekend.<\/p>\n You could say William Byron <\/strong>found himself in a\u00a0trashy<\/em> situation at Las Vegas. A literal trash bag made its way onto the front of his Chevrolet Camaro, forcing him onto pit road for an unscheduled stop. A long fight all day saw the 2024 Daytona 500 Champion recover to a 10th-place finish.<\/p>\n In twelve Cup starts at Phoenix, Byron has not finished worse than 24th place. Eleven of the twelve have come inside the Top 20 with seven inside the Top 10. His last three finishes have been a 6th or better winning the 2023 March race. Byron joins teammate Larson as the only driver receiving points in all eight Next Gen Phoenix stages. Cumulatively, his Average Running Position ranks first among active drivers in the four most recent events.<\/p>\n Blaney’s friend from last year’s Phoenix finale, Ross Chastain<\/strong>, will look to defend his Avondale crown. Three of his last four races have been finishes of third or better including last November’s victory. A chance for four could have happened in the 2023 March race before an incident with the below driver occurred in overtime.<\/p>\n Chastain has looked sharp to start 2024 with a seventh at Atlanta and a fourth at Las Vegas. Fellow Trackhouse Racing teammate,\u00a0Daniel Suare<\/strong>z<\/strong>, already found the winner’s circle with his stunning last-lap Atlanta finish. There are not many tracks better to his driving style, and his consistent competitiveness will be key for NASCAR Fantasy.<\/p>\n Denny Hamlin\u00a0<\/strong>is about to get his season going in high gear. The 43-year-old has not had an Average Running Position worse than twelfth in the Next Gen at Phoenix. He is the 2012 March winner and the 2019 Fall winner with 22 Top 10s in 37 starts. Hamlin’s first-career NASCAR Cup Series pole also came at Phoenix in only his sixth start.<\/p>\n Toyota’s have struggled at the track in recent years, but Hamlin always finds himself in the mix at the end. Has he gotten the stage points? No. However, I take value in his lap averages from Friday’s practice and his team’s ability to improve throughout the race. Long green flag runs will see Hamlin comfortably around the Top 5. From the pole, No 11. will lead Sunday’s field to green.<\/p>\n Ross Chastain defeated Ryan Blaney in last year’s Championship finale. The two shared a moment last weekend at Las Vegas in the closing laps of the race. It appears this duo pairing is a new on-track rivalry. Can it carry over on race day? Yes. Who takes the cake on Sunday? I do not have a confident answer.<\/p>\n This is the tightest pairing of the weekend. By the thinnest of margins, I choose Chastain<\/em>.<\/p>\n Based on recent performances and statistics, there is a clear favorite here. Although Chase Elliott had the best Chevrolet lap time in practice, Toyota appears to have brought a different level of horsepower this weekend. Additionally, Elliott has not finished inside the Top 10 at Phoenix since the 2022 finale race.<\/p>\n With NASCAR Fantasy having featured matchups only based on finishing position, and until the former Champion shows improved results, my pick has to be Hamlin<\/em>.<\/p>\n Friday’s test session did not look good for the Richard Childress Racing group.\u00a0Kyle Busch\u00a0<\/strong>showed late improvements, but it was nothing as strong as Christopher Bell’s. 15-lap, 20-lap, and beyond-lap averages were all in his favor. Bell enters the weekend looking to bounce back after having his 2023 title hopes end early and with back-to-back finishes this season outside the Top 30.<\/p>\n Bell\u00a0<\/em>takes the edge.<\/p>\n Similar to Elliott, we have not seen the results from\u00a0Alex Bowman<\/strong>. Only two Top 10s have amounted since his return from injury in May of last year. In 13 starts with HMS, he surprisingly has only found two finishes of twelfth or better. Last weekend, I suggested avoiding Gibbs at Las Vegas, and his performance bit my pick.<\/p>\n The pieces are coming together for the rising star, and because of this, I like\u00a0Gibbs\u00a0<\/em>to defeat Bowman on Sunday.<\/p>\n What does your NASCAR Fantasy lineup look like for the 2024 Shriners Children’s? Tweet us @LWOSMotorsport<\/a>. Stay tuned here at\u00a0LWOS Motorsports<\/a>\u00a0for NASCAR news, results, updates, and more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" NASCAR Fantasy is ready to go for the Cup Series ahead of the Shriners Children’s 500 from Phoenix Raceway. The fourth race of the 2024 NASCAR season will take place on Sunday, March 10th. With a new short track package, 36 cars will take to the one-mile Arizona circuit at 3:30 pm ET (12:30 pm […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5025,"featured_media":19203,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5,1664],"tags":[148,62,1323,1143,775,60],"class_list":["post-19161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-nascar","category-nascar-cup-series","tag-denny-hamlin","tag-kyle-larson","tag-phoenix-raceway","tag-ross-chastain","tag-ryan-blaney","tag-william-byron"],"modified_by":"Hayden Murdock","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5025"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19161\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}2024 PENNZOIL 400 RECAP<\/span><\/h2>\n
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STARTERS<\/span><\/h2>\n
Pick 1 – Kyle Larson<\/h3>\n
Pick 2 – Ryan Blaney<\/h3>\n
Pick 3 – William Byron<\/h3>\n
Pick 4 – Ross Chastain<\/h3>\n
Pick 5 – Denny Hamlin<\/h3>\n
ALTERNATE OPTIONS<\/span><\/h2>\n
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HIDDEN GEM<\/span><\/h2>\n
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*AVOID*<\/span><\/h2>\n
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FEATURED NASCAR FANTASY MATCHUPS<\/span><\/h2>\n
Ryan Blaney vs. Ross Chastain<\/h3>\n
Denny Hamlin vs. Chase Elliott<\/h3>\n
Kyle Busch vs. Christopher Bell<\/h3>\n
Ty Gibbs vs. Alex Bowman<\/h3>\n