About Me. About the Site.

If you are new to the site and wondering what it is all about, here it is in a hopefully entertaining and informative few paragraphs. But, don't just take it from me. It's safe to say I'm a little biased. See what others have said about the Fantasy Racing Cheat Sheet.

An Evolving Web Site That Has Evolved With Me

I've always had the passion to share informative and helpful information to others.

In the mid-90's I dabbled in direct mail, attempting to market information on ignoble topics like handling your own divorce and how to repair your credit (two things I knew about first-hand).

In 2000, I bought a book on HTML (the stuff you write to build websites) and that passion to disperse information moved over to the Internet. I messed around with a variety of topical sites (most notably an mp3 sharing site) until 2005 when I settled in on creating a NASCAR related blog called Onebadwheel.

One Bad Wheel

When I started Onebadwheel (aka OBW) I came out swinging. I thought that to get noticed in the emerging blogosphere you needed to have a sailors mouth (sorry, no offense to any of you polished and tasteful sailors) and be controversial. I made some good friends with some of the other NASCAR bloggers (and I think a few cynics as well).

Something I really wanted to do back then was learn about databases. I had been playing fantasy NASCAR games since 2001 and my tool of choice was something nascar.com had called Driver vs. Driver. That tool is the inspiration for everything I have done!

Driver vs Driver and my First Database

Eventually, that tool either disappeared or I simply wanted more, I'm not sure which. So, I set out to learn databasing with the goal I proclaimed on Onebadwheel to build the Ultimate Fantasy NASCAR Database.

I spent hours and hours working on it. When the wife and kids were heading off to bed, I was starting a pot of coffee. Slowly, I hand-entered NASCAR race results into my database.

I created some queries on that little database to tell me: what a drivers average finish was, how he had finished at a particular track over time and about 10 other things I can't even remember. I was fascinated and hooked!

Fastforward

Onebadwheel grew more popular and I always strove to make it the best it could be. I had some help and encouragement along the way.

First and foremost, my buddy James Jones. A guy I didn't even know, out of the blue, wanted to write an amazing Car Number Countdown to Daytona for the site. For free no less! James continued to be a big help by writing and also telling me when I was stupid and when I was brilliant. He is an equal-opportunity offender like that.

Then I became friends with Charlie at OnPitRow . Jeff Gutowski, Eric McClung and Ryan Rantz all joined in and helped write great content simply because they are great guys and love NASCAR.

No Bad Wheel

All the time it took to run Onebadwheel (I wasn't really too smart in how I built it) and the dreadfully long NASCAR seasons took its toll and I shut Onebadwheel down in April of 2009.

Good riddance. I was burnt out.

Charlie, from OnPitRow, and his posse came down to Texas for the Fall race that year. Talking to him in the stands I elaborated on a concept that James and I long discussed. Actually creating an awesome product to sell on the site. A Fantasy NASCAR Draft Kit.

Fantasy Racing Cheat Sheet

I think I was on Go Daddy that night after the race looking at domain names. I snagged this one up and started to draft out my plan on how to accomplish this draft kit idea.

I wrote and wrote until I completed driver and track profiles for the top-35 drivers. Charlie, Ryan and Eric all pitched in with a fantasy snippet for each driver as well. The site looked pretty darn good and was filled with tons of useful fantasy NASCAR information.

Still, I wanted to offer something more that I felt fantasy NASCAR fans were not getting anywhere else.

NASCAR Loop Data

NASCAR has an arm of the organization called the NASCAR Media Group. They do a great job providing NASCAR information to media outlets and in the last few years, NASCAR bloggers as well.

NASCAR also has been collecting Loop Data since 2005. Loop Data is a bevy of statistics that tell all kinds of things about a drivers performance in a race. You can say what you like or don't like about how NASCAR runs things, but I give them high praise for their sharing of information such as Loop Data with you and I. It costs them a large amount of money to get.

So, I used this Loop Data in my driver rankings on the 2010 version of the draft kit site. It went over well with the fantasy NASCAR fans that also say its importance over simple average finish position data.

One and Done

I really had no intention of doing anything more on the site through the 2010 NASCAR season.

I had not planned on updating statistics. Not offering any tools. To me, the site was a website version of a Fantasy NASCAR Draft Kit like you can buy off the magazine rack in January.

I had not anticipated the overwhelming positive response the site got.

I began to count in my head the number of emails and told my wife, "If I get XX more emails about continuing to update the site through the year, then I will."

I did. And, I did.

I also built more fantasy NASCAR tools and opened them up to the public. The Draft Kit remained private to those members that had purchased it.

2011 Fantasy Racing Cheat Sheet...and Beyond

Here we are a month out from the 2011 Daytona 500.

I have completely re-tooled the site from the 2010 version. It had great tools and statistics, but it still lacked the depth it needed. The things that fantasy NASCAR fans deserved.

The 2010 version lacked race results, in-depth driver pages, average practice times, selectable race ability (to say select only COT races) for each statistic. It lacked a blog. The place we all used to interact back when Onebadwheel was around.

It has all that and more now. This went real long. If you made it this far you either scanned to the end or I accomplished my goal of letting you really know who I am and why the site is worth spending your money at.

One important thing to note. There is absolutely no charge for viewing any of the NASCAR statistical data on the site. Loop Data or traditional data is provided to you at no-cost.

That is how I get it as well. What the subscription fee covers, if you decide to buy a subscription, are the tools I've created to let you manipulate the data in unique ways that let you decide through their interactive interface. Also, the written members-only fantasy NASCAR advice content.

I'm here to provide you great fantasy NASCAR tools. Accurate fantasy NASCAR advice. And, to foster and share my love of this great sport of NASCAR with you.

Darren Fauth