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Power Rankings: Mr. 2nd-place Kyle Larson isn't second

Nick Bromberg
·College football and motorsports writer

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 nickbromberg@yahoo.com and we’ll try to have some fun.

1. Kyle Larson (LW: 5): Is the era of Kyle Larson upon us? While it’s easy to say Larson should have more than one win in his Cup Series career, it’s also impossible to ignore the uptick in his performance since May of 2016.

After finishing outside the top 25 in six of the first 11 races last season, Larson has two such finishes over the 29 races since. And in those 29 races he’s finished in the top five 12 times. That’s a rate of 41 percent. Kevin Harvick led the Cup Series in 2016 by finishing in the top five 47 percent of the time. Larson isn’t too far off and he’s not driving for one of the four Cup Series juggernaut teams either.

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2. Brad Keselowski (LW: 1): Along with most of the leaders of the race, Keselowski pitted for tires and fuel during the race’s final caution flag on Saturday. He ended up finishing fifth, which is a worthy finish given he had a top five car all day. Keselowski did mention the “c” phrase in his post-race remarks, which isn’t a good aspect for a one-mile track that was supposed to be extra slippery thanks to hot temperatures.

“I thought we might have had a shot at getting the win but [Kyle Busch] was just a touch better,” Keselowski said. “We were all real close there. Whoever got the track position was going to run away. The clean air was so important which was a bit frustrating.”

3. Ryan Newman (LW: NR): You had to figure that Richard Childress Racing was going to break its winless streak the way Newman did on Sunday, right? While the team is solidly in the Cup Series’ second tier, it simply hasn’t had the speed that the top teams have had over the past few seasons. Unless RCR won a plate race, it was going to take a strategy call to get the win.

And that was a heck of a strategy call too. Given what we saw on Sunday, don’t be surprised if playoff teams mimic it in November if there’s a late caution in the Cup Series’ return trip to Phoenix.

4. Chase Elliott (LW: 5): As Larson is blossoming, so is Elliott. While it’s hard to imagine that the two will become enemies or start to dislike each other as the years go on, it’s not hard to see a rivalry of sorts burgeoning between the two in the future.

Elliott led 106 laps on Sunday and won the second stage of the race. He finished 12th, however, and as Keselowski said “clean air,” in his post-race comments, Elliott uttered the “t” phrase.

“Even the really good cars had a really hard time getting to somebody, so track position was big as it always is, every week, everywhere we go and that will continue to be the case throughout the year,” Elliott said. “So, if you don’t have it at the end of the race it is going to be an uphill battle I feel like throughout this season. That is going to be a big trend.”

That’s not a ringing endorsement of the increased ability to pass with NASCAR’s lower downforce rules.

5. Martin Truex Jr. (LW: 2): Last week’s winner started 16th and finished 11th. That’s a pretty good way to describe his day too. He didn’t finish in the top 10 in any of the two stages and also got hurt on pit road late in the race when the air hose from Michael McDowell’s car got caught underneath Truex’s.

6. Kevin Harvick (LW: 8): Sound the alarms, Kevin Harvick didn’t win at Phoenix. He didn’t even finish in the top five either. It’s definitely time to panic.

While that’s clearly sarcasm, Sunday wasn’t a good day for Harvick at Phoenix by his recent standards. He didn’t lead any laps for the second-straight race at the track either. Before failing to lead a lap at Phoenix in the fall, he last didn’t lead at the track in the spring of 2013. In the six races in between he led a total of 1,064 of 1,780 laps. Insane.

“We just didn’t ever get it exactly how we wanted all weekend,” Harvick said. “Luckily it is a good race track for us and we were able to battle and use all the tricks of the trade we know to get ourselves up in contention.”

7. Joey Logano (LW: 3): Logano had one of the fastest cars throughout the race. Or at least at the beginning of the race where he won the first stage before starting on the pole.

But a speeding penalty on pit road led to a loss of track position. And based off the comments you’ve seen above, it’s not surprising to know that Logano had a hell of a time trying to get back to the front. It’s easy to reason that his blown right-front tire with six laps to go could have been helped by his need to push harder than normal in an ultimately futile attempt to get back to the front.

“There is not much you can do when the right front blows out.=,” Logano said. “We had a good car in the beginning of the race and then just fell off and got a pit road speeding penalty and it was hard to get back up there. We were getting closer but out long run speed was off.”

8. Kurt Busch (LW: 5): Busch dealt with battery issues all day and ended up finishing 25th after starting 11th. Short and sweet and to the point.

9: Ryan Blaney (LW: 7): Blaney finished two spots ahead of Busch even though he qualified on the front row. He too got a pit road speeding penalty that compounded his handling issues. When track position went away at Phoenix, it disappeared for good.

“About halfway through the race our trackbar stopped working, which was bad,” Blaney said. “That really hurt us. That really hurt from being able to adjust our car throughout the run. That is what we needed. That really sucked when that stopped working. We take for granted those things. Then I sped on pit road and that put us in a bigger hole. We had an issue and then I compounded the issue by speeding and you can’t have that.”

10. Kyle Busch (LW: NR): Depending on what side of the fence you’re on in the Busch-Logano kerfuffle, the caution caused by Logano’s crash that denied Busch a sure win was either cruel or appropriate. Or if you don’t have any strong feelings about the issue, it was simply another “that’s so NASCAR” moment. If NASCAR was scripted — it’s not, commenters — the script of Logano indirectly costing Busch a win a week after Busch tried to punch him would be rejected by producers.

11. Clint Bowyer (LW: 11): What a difference a season makes.

“It was that kind of weekend for us really<” Bowyer said. “Just a little off all weekend long. We got it better Saturday and I really thought we were going to be alright there but we actually ended up racing the way we struggled all day Friday“

Bowyer finished 13th. If he finished 13th in 2016 while driving for HScott Motorsports, he’d have been celebrating.

12. Jimmie Johnson (LW: NR): Hey, the defending champion has made an appearance in Power Rankings. Johnson finished ninth on Sunday and scored the sixth-most points of anyone in the race because he finished in the top 10 in both of the first two segments. It was a solid day for Johnson, though he said he knew he was in a bad spot on the final restart.

“The last restart I knew it wasn’t going to be favorable for us and it just didn’t turn out,” Johnson said. “But a decent performance, probably a top five car or top three car on the long run, just lacked too much on the short run.”

The Lucky Dog: Daniel Suarez finished seventh and Erik Jones was eighth. It’s the first top 10 for each rookie.

The DNF: Matt Kenseth blew a tire and finished 37th, sandwiched between BK Racing stalwarts Gray Gaulding and Corey LaJoie.

Dropped out: Trevor Bayne, Kasey Kahne, Kenseth

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