By Mark Garrow
Jayski.com
Archive

The 2012 Nationwide Series season promises to be very exciting, with an influx of new full-time drivers like Danica Patrick, former Indy Car Champion and Indy 500 winner Sam Hornish, Jr. and 2011 Camping World Truck Series Champion Austin Dillon.

To make it all the more fun to keep up with ESPN is bringing back the Nationwide Driver Pick' em fantasy racing game, brought to you free of charge by the good folks at Nationwide Insurance.

Each week, we'll put together 10 head-to-head driver matchups and you'll pick which driver you think will finish higher than the other in that particular race. To make things a little more interesting, each driver will have a point value that could range from 1 to 10. Sometimes each driver will have the same value, other times there will be a difference, sometimes a significant one. So, if you smell an upset in the making, you could take a big underdog and add valuable points to your team.

For instance, for the first race at Daytona, Tony Stewart, who's won the event four times in a row, is up against Brad Keselowski. If Stewart wins again, you'll score three points, but if Keselowski can blow away "Smoke," then you'll score seven points. In another matchup between Joey Logano and Kasey Kahne, the point difference is 6-4. Again, there will be occasions it will be even up with each driver getting five points if he or she comes out on top.

The scoring system is very simple. If you pick the driver who wins that matchup, you'll score the amount of points associated with him. Thankfully, if you pick the wrong driver you won't lose points. The bottom line is that you can only add to your point total during each of the 33 races scheduled to be run this year on the Nationwide Series. Your picks need to made him time before the "lockout" each week that takes place just before the scheduled start.

Now, the game may be free but you are playing for some serious, hard, cold cash. Each week, the person with the highest score will win $500. For every race, there's going to be a tiebreaker question and, while not mandatory, it would be a good idea to answer it each week just in case you've got a score that could potentially show you the money. Then, there's the Grand Prize. Following the 33 races, the person who's scored the most points (and potentially survives the tiebreakers) will win $25,000!

Nationwide Driver Pick 'em - Message Boards

Join the Nationwide Driver Pick 'em message boards and get some help from the competition. Trash-talk with your selections, brag about your favorite drivers or anything else racing-related all day, every day. Forums