Power Rankings: Jimmie Johnson gets a win and retakes the top spot

Welcome to Power Rankings. As always, Power Rankings are far from a scientific formula. In fact, it’s the perfect blend of analytics and bias against your favorite driver. Direct all your complaints to us at happyhourmailbag@yahoo.com and we’ll try to have some fun.

1. Jimmie Johnson (LW: 3): Welcome to the final round of the Chase, Jimmie Johnson. Six-time enters Sunday’s race at Texas with four-straight wins at the track. The last two have come when there’s been no pressure on Johnson to perform because he’s already been eliminated from the Chase.

It’s still a minimal pressure situation on Sunday, but in a very good way. Until someone beats Johnson at Texas, it’s hard to see anyone but him being the favorite. Not only would a Johnson win on Sunday put his streak at five, but it would also extend Hendrick Motorsports’ equipment streak in the third round of the Chase. Hendrick-equipped cars have won all seven third-round races since the current Chase format was implemented.

2. Joey Logano (LW: 2): Logano is in a bit of no-man’s land this week. He finished ninth on Sunday, a finish good enough to not drop him a bunch in Power Rankings. But the guys below him finished third, fourth and fifth. Those finishes are good enough to pass Logano, but they were all four spots below him last week. This is a hard job, folks.

Anyway, Logano didn’t get crashed this year at Martinsville. That’s a big victory, especially considering the issues three of the seven other Chase drivers had. If he can make it through Texas without a problem (he was out early in 2015), he’s got a heck of a shot at the final four.

3. Denny Hamlin (LW: 5): Teammate Kyle Busch might have been unhappy with Hamlin not getting out of the way for he and Matt Kenseth at the end of the race, but Hamlin didn’t think he had a slower car than either teammate.

“None of us were going to get [Johnson],” Hamlin said. “That’s real. That’s real talk there. Nobody was on my rear bumper at the end of the race. I think I had six car lengths to the 20 and more back to the 18.”

4. Matt Kenseth (LW; 6): Is Matt Kenseth the best driver to never get a Martinsville win? The paperclip was never one of his best tracks when he was with Roush Fenway Racing, but he’s been spectacular with Joe Gibbs Racing despite never visiting victory lane.

Kenseth finished fourth Sunday, his eighth start at Martinsville with JGR. He’s finished in the top 15 in seven starts with the team — the outlier is, of course, last season. He had 14 top-15 finishes at Martinsville in 26 starts with Roush.

5. Kyle Busch (LW: 6): Busch remarked after the race that the team worked so well together that it gave Jimmie Johnson the opportunity to win the race. But at the same time, he too said he wasn’t sure he’d be able to catch Johnson.

“We probably could have been about second, I don’t know if we could have got up there and caught [Johnson] as long as we got caught up behind all that stuff, but we had a fifth-place car today and we showed that today,” Busch said.

So could anyone have caught the 48? There’s one driver that thinks he could have.

6. Kevin Harvick (LW: 1): That driver was definitely not Harvick, who was not fast throughout the entirety of Sunday’s race.

This does feel a bit familiar to Harvick’s predicament in the second round. After a poor finish at Charlotte, he headed to a track where he’s been ohsoclose to winning recently. And after a poor (for Harvick) finish at Martinsville, he’s heading to a track where he’s been ohsoclose to winning recently. Harvick has finished second, second, third and 10th in his four previous Texas races.

And if he doesn’t win Texas, there’s always Phoenix.

7. Kurt Busch (LW: 4): Is Busch’s survive-and-advance Chase tactic nearing the end of its usefulness after his poor showing at Martinsville? Busch finished 22nd Sunday, his worst finish in the Chase.

Busch hasn’t led any laps in the Chase, though he’s finished in the top 15 in every other race. It’s too early to rule Busch out of the final four as he’s fully capable of getting two top-10 finishes and making it to the final round. But it’s also pretty easy to see a few other drivers who finished ahead of Busch at Martinsville doing the same thing.

8. Carl Edwards (LW: 6): Edwards has shown speed in the Chase, and that’s why it’s not a stretch to think it’s more likely he’ll get to the final four than Busch will. Edwards was fast at Kansas, a track that has some striking similarities to Texas. And Edwards was second at Phoenix (to Harvick, of course) in the spring.

But after finishing 36th on Sunday, Edwards needs to win. Or hope for misfortune for four other drivers.

9. Brad Keselowski (LW: 11): Here’s the guy who thought he had a shot at Jimmie Johnson. If Sunday’s race went 10-15 laps longer, it’s feasible to see Keselowski on Johnson’s back bumper fighting for the win. And yes, if NASCAR would have red-flagged Sunday’s race when it was trying to figure out the scoring rather than running 29 laps of caution, Keselowski could’ve had those 10-15 extra laps.

10. Martin Truex Jr. (LW: 10): After starting first, Truex finished seventh on Sunday. He led 147 laps, second-most to Matt Kenseth, who had 176. And now Truex heads to Texas, where he dominated and ultimately didn’t win at. We’ll be stunned if Truex isn’t incredibly fast again.

11. Jeff Gordon (LW: NR): We’re putting Gordon in Power Rankings after his sixth-place finish because this is probably the final time we’ll get to do so. Gordon wasn’t a threat for the win on Sunday, though he was really, really good and it was easy to see him being a contender if there was some late-race craziness up front.

But Sunday was a good way to go out. It was a good run and it didn’t have a defining moment strong enough to overshadow his win at the track in 2015, the lasting memory of the final days of Gordon’s career.

12. AJ Allmendinger (LW: NR): Did you know this guy has three-straight top-10 finishes? Allmendinger has always been good at Martinsville but the previous two came at Kansas and Talladega. Throw in his ninth-place finish at Bristol in August and a fourth at Watkins Glen and Allmendinger has five top-10 finishes in the last 12 races. He had three in the first 21.

Lucky Dog: Let’s give a call to Michael McDowell, who finished 18th and was taken to the infield care center via stretcher after the race. It was his best Martinsville finish.

The DNF: Ricky Stenhouse Jr. made it 21 laps before his car wheel-hopped and he crashed.

Dropped Out: Austin Dillon, Chase Elliott

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Nick Bromberg is the editor of From The Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!

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