Just like the past five years, we're going to treat the 2017 NASCAR All-Star Race next Saturday (May 20) just like a normal weekend NASCAR race but with more bonus point opportunity.
All picks for the Monster Energy Open and the Monster Energy All-Star race events must be posted Friday, May 19th, before the television coverage of Qualifying starts on Fox Sports 1.
Here's the weekend schedule:
* Qualifying, a three-lap run with no speed limit on pit road will be televised on Friday night. As always there will be a -1 bonus point if you pick the Qualifying winner.
* The Monster Energy Open, a qualifying race for all drivers not automatically eligible to drive in the All-Star race. There will be three segments to the Monster Energy Open: 20, 20, and 10 laps, with each stage winner advancing to the All-Star race. Another driver will advance to the All-Star race based on the fan vote.
* There are four stages in this year's Monster Energy All-Star Race -- a 20-lap opening stage, a 20-lap second stage, a 20-lap third stage and a 10-lap final dash to the finish. The three winners of the 20-lap stages, as long as they're still on the lead lap after the third stage, are locked into the final 10-lap sprint, which will only include 10 drivers. The seven drivers who join the three stage winners will be decided by the average finish in the first three stages. Once the ten drivers eligible for the final stage are announced, they'll do an additional pit stop and the order of the drivers exiting pit road will determine the starting order for the final 10-lap stage, which offers a $1-million prize.
Confused yet?
So, how are points going to work? Pick two drivers as always - driver picks are for the Friday night qualifying and Saturday All Star Race only, you are not picking drivers for the Monster Energy Open.
All game scoring will be based on All Star Race qualifying and finish position only.
But you can pick a driver that is driving in the Saturday Monster Energy Open if you think they will be one of the three drivers from either the Monster Energy Open, or will be the fan vote winner, and advance to the Saturday All Star Race.
If your driver wins the final 10-lap segment of the All Star Race you'll get a -5 bonus, 2nd-place driver pick will get a -3 point bonus. Also, the driver pick winning each 20-lap segment of the All Star Race will get a -1 point bonus. If the same driver pick wins multiple 20-lap segments they'll get a -1 point bonus for each.
As always, finishing positions from the All Star Race for your driver picks will be averaged. But not all current drivers will be starting the 70-lap All-Star race and some may get knocked out due to accidents or mechanical problems during the three 20-lap segments.
Only 19 drivers will start the All-Star race event, including the Fan Vote Winner and the three stage winners from the Monster Energy Open preliminary race.
Any driver pick not starting the final 10-lap segment will have their final position counted as an 11th-place finish, one more than the final segment starting car count. If you pick a driver that doesn't make it out of the Monster Energy Open, you'll also get an 11th-place finish.
No picks at all will be counted as 19 points since only 19 cars will be starting the All-Star Race stages.
Whew! Too much thinking! I've got a headache again - and it's worse than the headache I got with thinking about this race last year.
Here's the list of drivers guaranteed entry to the All-Star Race. They'll be joined by the Fan Vote Winner and the three stage winners of the Monster Energy Open:
#1 Jamie McMurray
#2 Brad Keselowski
#4 Kevin Harvick
#5 Kasey Kahne
#11 Denny Hamlin
#18 Kyle Busch
#20 Matt Kenseth
#22 Joey Logano
#31 Ryan Newman
#37 Chris Buescher
#41 Kurt Busch
#42 Kyle Larson
#48 Jimmie Johnson
#78 Martin Truex Jr.
#88 Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Pick any driver not on the above list and double any bonus points earned by that driver. You could get -10 points for an event win, -6 points for an event runner-up, -2 points for any 20-lap segment wins and -2 points for qualifying for the All-Star Race Pole.
Not interested in any driver except for those already locked in, you say? How about #3 Austin Dillon, #10 Danica Patrick, #21 Ryan Blaney? Any of them or any other non-qualified NASCAR driver could easily win either the Monster Energy Open or the Fan Vote on Friday night. Pick a non-qualified driver and possibly earn double bonus points.
So, do you feel lucky? Well, do you?
Vote for your favorite driver if he's not already in the set field and try to get him in via the Sprint Fan Vote.
And of you just want to keep your already "locked in" picks...that's OK too.
Good luck all! Let me know if you have any questions.