Congratulations to the newest first time Pick'em Series winner, AfterForever00, who wins at Chicago this week by 34 points over scottw73, who continues his string of strong finishes.
Again, congratulations to AfterForever00.
cadets101 also continues his momentum, with a great third place, 795 point effort. Joker88 finishes 4th in his first race of the year, with another new picker, DB2403 in 5th.
DannyM and MattSRD28, who was in need of a good weekend, tie for 6th place. NASCARsweden, simobsessed, and 88fan round out the top 10.
With his 9th place finish, simobsessed once again takes over the points lead, as he moves in front of dspence20 by 7 points, as a result of dspence20's tough 23rd place-683 point week. DE3 remains in third, but picks up some ground on the leader, 196 points out of 1st.
Between the top 3 in points, they have held the points lead for 16 of the 19 weeks so far this season. (DE3 (7), simobsessed (5), dspence20 (4)).
scottw73 knocks out another bad race with a great one and moves to 257 of the leader, in 4th. cadets101 sits in 5th, with DannyM in 6th. JeffJordan and zaw24fan swap 7th and 8th, after both had tough weeks, with JeffJordan's point differential for knocking out his lowest race being bigger. NASCARsweden remains 9th in points, with jazarovitz moving into the final chase spot, just 9 ahead of jaqua99, who falls out of the chase this weekend.
Just 198 points separate 8th-13th in points at this point, but with 7 races left to the Chase, with many people beginning to pass or within a week or two of passing 15 races entered, the Chase spots are still up for grabs, with about 32 people still alive for Chase contention. It's still anyone's game.
Of the 19 people who knocked out a low race total this weekend, 3 knocked out Talladega, 3 Las Vegas, 2 Darlington, 2 Daytona, 2 Lowe's, 2 New Hampshire, 2 Richmond, 1 Dover, 1 Daytona (Race 2), and 1 Phoenix.
On the Rookie of the Year side of things, the points battle continues to show that you do not want to be in the points lead. For the second consecutive race since building a 20 point lead, JeffJordan fails to score a rookie point. Fortunately for him, the gap remains at 8, with zaw24fan not scoring any points either. However, There are now 3 people tied for 2nd, all 8 points behind JeffJordan, as DannyM and cadets101 have good competitive ROTY weeks. NASCARsweden rounds out the top 5, 34 points back.
If I continue consistent finishes, I could end up in this chase! Looking good there, I think I would of had a top 5 if Kenseth ran beter like he usually does.