After the
disastrous beginning to my TracksideOnline Fantasy season, I decided I needed a little edge heading into Kansas. I ran to my
hope chest big steel army surplus locker and grabbed my WWRPD booklet.
And I asked myself: "What Would Roger Penske Do?" The answer is obvious... he'd find a way to turn a limitation into an advantage through innovation.
So I took a look at TSO's Fantasy web page, and recalled a task I've found difficult to perform: selecting 5 drivers that stay under the $1.6M salary cap. Look and the 5 drivers selected below, and notice that you have no way to know how much you are over the cap:
![](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_uTTbNUqrHy1m0z8KvfCyhl1ubgQGdy8Fp4QcaxcwjtF8GtQW4LYQlDMASWTFhM_SdECxmnKV-UPwC0dxr09KMkmNbrp40jAgOWUR7L79EZLaxNc7fMQEd2SJL6GDzgXeA=s0-d)
If you click 'Enter Your Picks' at this point, you will get this error:
![](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_uCGexK8usAAPoKnYZ7lAOU1DSqKvVnQNhP57MuMc8H1ag8jM5tc-8xg15TGInmJzd_xgEdQ82VTecrgN25z8pQAv-oXLT_KDMBJ1tl8_HQGFW3a_hzNG9qZg6W0SsPU00=s0-d)
How much do I need to cut? Clearly, I needed to create my own tool. So I brushed off my HTML skills (kidding, I do this for a living) and created my own entry page which uses nothing but client-side javascript. In my selection tool, all the drivers are presented together:
![](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_uwg1Z5kF3acrszOm3of1r8XE9OWfwLVEOSel56NWNCRcBXGSs5s4gIzpGmWKRI570is_gJOfjOpAhpZA5Xxcy3skh6HxZ-l2Xk1O0UmivIDcVT-_hVJkkn0MwPt8nHz8w=s0-d)
As I select my drivers, the 'Total Budget' and 'Remaining Budget' numbers recalculate automatically, allow me to play lots of what-if scenarios. Once I reach 5 selected drivers, the rest of the checkboxes automatically disable themselves. Entering the same 5 drivers as I did earlier, I can now see that I'm over budget by exactly $210,000:
![](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_v324IJBWjdwtkOKjdfs1h4ujqfCBb--UFYWf-9C4uj9f2V0EPPlyuGowlRApel6SuZiSf3Y7QnHStK8fTSYXnUlHSw0HsicYvyxSVYdsScsc3X1J7IxJMU7NRD1h-GPw=s0-d)
So how did this perform for me at Kansas? With some experimentation, I discovered that I could select Kanaan, Castroneves, Andretti, Scheckter, and Hunter-Reay -- a pretty stunning lineup in this league, but with the obvious drawback that I had to pass on the two Ganassi cars. It was a homerun swing which resulted in a strikeout, as Wheldon and Dixon finished 1-2 and Team Racemind had to settle for 183rd spot.
But even Roger doesn't win every time out. Staring up from the bottom of the league, I'll take whatever little edge I can.