For the first time some of our Redneck Fantasy League Players have offered in with their pre-season picks on who they think will emerge in all three series as Rookie of The Year winners, as well as series champs.  With the retirement of Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart, and the “stepping away” from fulltime racing by Carl Edwards, the face of the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series is changing.  The aforementioned idea proves that we have witnessed, over the past two or three years in the Cup Series, a transition of power, a passing of the torch to the younger drivers.  With that in mind the idea of looking at this new crop of young talent that has worked their way up to the three touring series of NASCAR, it be insightful to shine a light on some of them to see if their potential talent will take them to the top of the NASCAR world!

About a week ago Karen the Highly Opinionated Southern Belle suggested that it might be interesting to incorporate some of the the players pre-season thoughts and picks about who they thought, at this point, would be players in all three series championships, as well as the respective Rookies of The Year winners.  A few of the players responded.

 

Our Pre-Season Choices

 

The first to weigh in was Karen The Highly Opinionated Southern Belle with her choices in the three series for 2017.

Camping World Truck Series

Rookie of The Year-–Noah Gragson in the Kyle Busch Motorsports No. 18 Tundra

Series Champion—--Christopher Bell driving the  KBM No.4 Tundra

Xfinity Series

Rookie of The year—-Cole Custer the Stewart-Haas Racing No.00 Ford Mustang

Series Champion—William Byron driving JR Motorsports No.9 Camaro

Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series

Rookie of The Year—Daniel Suarez, (Carl Edwards’ and JGR replacement)

Series Champion—Joey Logano Team Penske

Next to offer up their insights into who they may think are early season favorites was the second and third generation of my limb of the Hammack family tree, father-son duo of Jeremy The Coach and Cole The Redneck Understudy.

Jeremy The Coach’s pre-season selections;

Truck Series

ROTY—Chase Briscoe in his Brad Keselowski Racing No.29 F-150

Champion–Christopher Bell 

NXS

ROTY—William Byron driving for JR Motorsports

Champion—William Byron

MENCS

ROTY— Erik Jones driving the new Furniture Row Racing No.77 Camry

Champion-– Jimmie Johnson for his unprecedented 8th crown

Now we can look at Cole The Redneck Understudy’s picks

Truck Series

ROTY—Noah Gragson

Champ–Christopher Bell

NXS

ROTY—William Byron

Champ—William Byron

MENCS

ROTY—Daniel Suarez

Champion–Dale Earnhardt, Jr. driving the HMS No.88

Jim, aka Chiefy listed his  prognostications:

CWTS

ROTY—Noah Gragson

Champ—Matt Crafton driving the ThorSport Racing’s No.88 Tundra

NXS

ROTY—William Byron

Champ—Elliott Sadler driving the JR Motorsport No.1 Camaro

MENCS

ROTY… Erik Jones

Champ–

Meanwhile Edie The Las Vegas Super Star offers up a somewhat different set of choices.

CWTS

Rookie—Cody Coughlin driving the  ThorSport No.13 Tundra

Champ—Johnny Sauter driving the Gallagher Motorsports No.21 Silverado

NXS…

ROTY—Cole Custer

Champ—Ryan Reed in his Roush Fenway No.16 Mustang

MENCS

ROTY—Damiel Suarez

Champ—Matt Kenseth

Lastly yours truly, Leon Your Most Humble Sheriff will list his choices.

CWTS

ROTY—Chase Briscoe driving the BKR No.29 Ford F-150

Champ—Christopher Bell

NXS

ROTY—William Byron

Champ—William Byron

MENCS

ROTY—Erik Jones

Champ–-Joey Logano

After looking over the participants pre-season picks, there are some interesting common threads, as well as some very interesting differences that underlie these picks! At the end of the season I will revisit the pre-season picks from these players and see just how close we came to predicting these award winners, or just how far we all missed the mark!  Even though this sampling is only 6 of the 21 Redneck Fantasy League players, it will still be fun to see if what we thought pre-season, will carry through to season’s ending!

Keep some of these names in the back of your mind because some of these young guns may be the stars of NASCAR tomorrow!

Hopefully this will be an annual pre-season feature for The Redneck Fantasy League web site, with many more players joining in and participating next season in this game!

 

TIL NEXT TIME, PULL YOUR GLOVES UP, FLIP YOUR VISOR DOWN, AND LET’S GO RACIN”!