Fantasy Report: Ford 400

We're down to the last race of the 2008 season and I speak for both Fantasy bloggers when I say "thank goodness!" After falling back to 11th in our league, and Erik in 22nd, it's a relief that this is the end. My only hope is that I can climb into the top 10 but it gets harder to post a lot of points at the end of the season when your top drivers are used up. I guess I'll just make do with who I have and wish for the best.

My picks for this week:

• Jeff Gordon✔ and Kurt Busch

• David Ragan✔, Juan Pablo Montoya✔, Jamie McMurray and Kasey Kahne

• David Reutimann✔ and AJ Allmendinger

Different motives: There's a lot of things happening this weekend. Jimmy Johnson can take home his third consecutive championship by finishing 36th or better, 37th and leading one lap or 39th and leading the most laps. Jeff Gordon is trying one last time to post his first win of the season or other Chase drivers trying to finish higher in the standings. Also, you have teams looking to stay in the top 35 in owner points which might be the recipe for a big wreck before the checkered flag is dropped. It's hard to say whether or not Johnson will lay back and try to post a top 20 or so finish or put it out front like he did last weekend. I would imagine he might not finish extremely high in the running order so he might not be a good pick this weekend. I'm going with Gordon for my A driver and although he finished badly last weekend he'll be going all out in Miami.

Decisions, decisions: If you're within striking distance of the top spot in your league you can either play it safe and hope for the best or gamble for that extra surge in points. I decided to do a little of both. All the drivers on my roster have had some amount of success at Homestead or just throughout the season. However, drivers like Kasey Kahne and AJ Allmendinger who have had up-and-down years could really shine this weekend. The only driver I'm confident I'll leave in is Ragan, who's had a phenominal year for such a green driver.

Parting shot: I hope that if you've read this blog throughout the 2008 season that you've been able to take away the better advice we've given you. Stats and trends can only tell you so much and it can be painfully obvious sometimes that the nature of racing is unpredictable. It has been a fun year, I was up to second at one point and Erik was in first and it looked like we were both going to finish very well and then once you have a few bad weeks there's no way to recover. I would say my biggest accomplishment this year was picking so many race winners. I went on 7-week streak at one point and that's the stuff that makes Fantasy fun even if you don't come in first at the end. Good luck in the final race and stay out of the wall!