All season, Mark Smith has been picking Tony Stewart, who missed the first few races after being injured in a pre-season ATV accident, and at Sonoma Raceway, it finally paid off, as Stewart took home the win, netting Smith 10 points, plus an additional two points for his 22 laps led. Nobody else scored any points, which extended Smith's lead Here are this weekend's predictions.

How it works

Every week, all of the writers of the VAVEL NASCAR team submit their picks for who they think will win that weekend's Sprint Cup race. After each race, the points are tallied based on the following criteria.

- If a driver wins, he gets 10 finish points. Every other driver gets one less, so a 10th place finish gets one point. A finish outside of the top-ten results in no points.

- A driver also gains one point for every 10 laps led during a race.

The standings

Here are the current standings following the Toyota/Savemart 350

This week's picks

Mark Smith

Driver: Austin Dillon

Reason: "I'm going for an underdog this week, but someone who has performed well on all types of tracks this season in the Sprint Cup Series. The driver of the #3 Chevrolet for Richard Childress Racing will get the victory this week at the World Centre of Racing. Dillon has been close in a number of Super Speedway races in the past couple of seasons but I see him going one better this week at Daytona."

Stevie Larson

Driver: Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Reason: "I am going with Earnhardt Jr. this weekend because Daytona is a track where he is always strong. He is the defending winner of this race and has four total wins at the track, including this race back in 2001, which was the first race at the track since the death of his father. Daytona's victory lane is a familiar place for him, and I think that he will visit it this week."

Stephen Furst

Driver: Chase Elliott

Reason: "Elliott has proven already this season that he is competitive at the superspeedways. The only thing that has stopped him from coming out on top is a few rookie mistakes. I think he has learned a lot through the first half of the season and is ready to put all that knowledge to good use and cross the finish line #1 on Saturday night."

Brandon Farris

Driver: Tony Stewart

Reason: "This race is always a wildcard. Very hard to make a decent prediction. But with luck on his side finally. He's gonna continue his run after his win last weekend and Smoke has always performed well in this race. With it also being his last appearance at Daytona he's gonna want to go out with a bang."