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Power Rankings: Truex leads the pack once again
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. Martin Truex Jr. (LW: 2): There’s no drama here for No. 1. Truex led 187 laps and could’ve had a Dover sweep if it wasn’t for the wreck that took him out of contention in the spring.
Not only is Truex heading to the second round with two wins in three races, he’s going to two tracks where he’s kicked serious ass so far this season. Truex has led a combined 564 out of 667 laps at Charlotte and Kansas, the next two tracks on the schedule.
This week we’re going to take a look at the finishes of each Chase driver at Charlotte, Kansas and Talladega, the three tracks that comprise the second round of the Chase.
2. Brad Keselowski (LW: 3): Keselowski was a bit miffed by his standing in the points after the first round. With a fourth-place finish on Sunday, the 2012 champion finished in the top five in the first three races of the Chase. Yet he was tied for seventh based on the reseeding for the second round. NASCAR seeds based on highest finish in a round, and while Keselowski racked up the good finishes, six other drivers had finishes higher than he did. Not really fair, but the Chase isn’t fair either.
3. Kyle Busch (LW: 6): Busch finished second and led 102 laps, though he admitted after the race that he didn’t have anything for Truex and the No. 78 team.
“I was in my own area code and he was off in his own zip code,” Busch said. But while Truex kicked Busch’s butt, Busch kicked everyone else’s. And his team has found consistency in the first three races of the Chase. Over the last 14 races of the season, Busch has finished in the top 10 on 10 occasions and has just two finishes outside the top 12. Maybe his bad luck at Bristol and Michigan was just a blip.
4. Kevin Harvick (LW: 1): Harvick went into Dover in 2015 needing a win. He went into Dover this year with a win, and well, he needed it. A broken track bar mount derailed his day and Harvick finished 37th, 46 laps down. With a poor finish at Chicago, Harvick would have been toast had he not won at New Hampshire.
Had he finished second in race No. 2, Harvick would have scored 66 points over the first three races of the Chase. Tony Stewart had 71, meaning he would have beaten Harvick out for the final spot in the Chase by five points.
5. Matt Kenseth (LW: 5): Here’s another driver who had a nice, consistent three weeks. Kenseth finished fifth at Dover and had three top-10 finishes to start the Chase. It’s a bump from his pre-Chase performance where he was 37th at Bristol and 38th at Richmond in addition to finishing outside the top 10 two other times in the final six races before the playoffs.
6. Denny Hamlin (LW: 4): Hamlin finished ninth and his post-race comments indicated a strong “survive and advance” mentality.
“We knew it was a so so day and that’s what we did,” Hamlin said. “It’s so hard to race and be aggressive when you have to race to not make any mistakes. We knew we were plenty fast enough today to just do what we had to do, but you can’t make any mistakes on pit lane so you’re a little bit slower. Behind the wheel I’m a lot more conservative than I would be and that equals about a ninth place finish and that’s where we were.”
When you have teams — especially in the first round — driving to avoid mistakes and disaster, you’re not going to see a lot of aggression. The format promotes being conservative in the first round.
7. Chase Elliott (LW: 7): Elliott’s upped his performance over the first three races of the Chase. After a summer slump of sorts, he was nowhere near the Chase bubble after finishing third at Dover. With two 1.5-mile tracks coming up, we’re anxious to see how the Hendrick Motorsports performance at Chicago translates to Charlotte and Kansas.
8. Jimmie Johnson (LW: 8): The last sentence for Elliott goes for Johnson too. Johnson had a good enough car at Dover to recover easily from the pit road penalty his team got for too many men over the wall on a pit stop. It was the second penalty in three races on pit road for the No. 48 bunch.
You can handle those things in the first round, but unless Johnson gets a win, multiple penalties in a round isn’t going to get you to the third and fourth rounds.
9. Joey Logano (LW: 9): Logano finished sixth on Sunday and led off his post-race quotes with, “Overall, we did what we had to do.” Again … being conservative always pays off in the first round. Logano has been competitive at 1.5-mile tracks, though he hasn’t had the raw speed that others have. If he gets two top-10 finishes at Charlotte and Kansas he’s going to be in good shape at Talladega … until avoiding the big crash becomes a priority.
10. Austin Dillon (LW: NR): Dillon’s turnaround at Dover over the weekend was remarkable. Not only did he need a good finish (and some bad luck for Kyle Larson) to get into the Chase, he was needing a good finish at a track where he simply didn’t have one.
Dillon’s best finish in six previous Dover races was 20th. He finished 8th on Sunday and was in the top 10 for a major portion of the day.
11. Carl Edwards (LW: 12): We feel like Edwards has been under-ranked for a while, but yet there hasn’t been a moment to vault Edwards up the rankings lately. It’s hard to do that when your best finish over the past five races is a sixth at New Hampshire.
Edwards’ last top-five finish came at Kentucky. 11 races ago. Yeah, he’s had two sixths, a seventh and an eighth since then, but it’s pretty evident that Edwards is fifth of the five JGR-equipped Toyotas in terms of race speed.
12. Kurt Busch (LW: 11): Busch drops to 12th after finishing 15th, one spot behind Edwards. Busch was the last driver in on points into the Chase and his early season performance shows no sign of resuming anytime soon.
To go along with an Edwards-like statistic, Busch hasn’t finished in the top three since winning at Pocono in June. His only top-five finishes since then are a fourth at Kentucky and a fifth at New Hampshire. Before Pocono, Busch had four top-five finishes in the previous 13 races and had only finished outside the top 10 once.
Lucky Dog: How about Jeff Gordon? “Retired driver finishes best among non-Chasers” is a good headline. He finished 10th.
The DNF: Poor Jamie McMurray. Not only was he eliminated from the Chase, he was whacked because his engine blew up and he finished last.
Dropped out: Kyle Larson
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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!