Power Rankings: Kurt Busch hangs on to the top spot with a top 10
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. Kurt Busch (LW: 1): Busch was a relative non-factor throughout Sunday’s race at Atlanta but ended up finishing seventh.
“ We were really loose in, really tight in the center and loose off,” Busch said. “We just had a lack of grip. The pit crew got us toward the top-five and we hung on to seventh. Nothing spectacular today, just need to fix what we have going wrong.”
Busch made a great habit out of scrounging out top 10s in the first part of 2016. Doing that in 2017 is great and it’ll be even better if he can do that in the playoffs as his performance slipped as the season went on last year.
2. Brad Keselowski (LW: 9): While he didn’t dominate Sunday’s race like the driver below him, we’re moving Keselowski ahead thanks to his win. That’s the right thing to do. Right?
Harvick’s penalty was huge for two reasons for Keselowski. One, it removed the dominant car from the front of the field and left Keselowski with two easier cars to overtake in the race’s final 10 laps. Secon, and perhaps even more important, Harvick’s penalty moved Keselowski from fourth to third on the race’s final restart.
That meant Keselowski started on the inside line instead of an outside lane that struggled to get good acceleration all day. Keselowski was able to take advantage of the situation, immediately rocket to second and then pass Kyle Larson for the win.
But damn, Keselowski sure had a roller coaster ride to get into position to capitalize on Harvick’s miscue. He had to climb his way through the field twice; once after a loose wheel and once after a tire issue. It’s better to have your problems early than late.
“You have to put yourself in position,” Keselowski said. “I wouldn’t say a lot of things fell our way. I don’t know if I would call it that way. But I would say we’ve had races where we’ve led a bunch of laps and things fall apart at the end. That’s just part of how this sport works. You take advantage of the opportunities when they come, and we certainly call it an opportunity, but I don’t know if I would call it a break.”
3. Kevin Harvick (LW: 4): There are a variety of karmic ways to look at Harvick’s loss on Sunday. First, you can look at it in the light that he’ll probably win a race at some point that he didn’t dominate, like Keselowski mentions above. There will be a time where Harvick capitalizes on someone’s else’s misfortune and wins a race.
Or you can be a tad more sadistic and look at it as a bit of comeuppance for the way Harvick handled the 2015 race at Talladega where he intentionally caused a caution to keep his Chase hopes alive.
We don’t fault Harvick for what he did at Talladega. You gotta do what you need to do. But if we’re not going to fault Harvick, you can’t fault Austin Dillon and the No. 3 team for doing what they did to cause the caution that led to Harvick’s pit road speeding penalty. While Dillon should have ultimately come to pit road — hindsight being 20/20 and all that — the team was hoping the car would refire and not stall in turns 1 and 2 after bypassing pit road.
If anything, it’s fair to note that the issue is a bit bigger because of Harvick’s past history with the Dillons and Richard Childress Racing. There’s a lot less spiciness if it was, say, Jeffrey Earnhardt who had caused the final caution for stopping on track.
4. Joey Logano (LW: 2): The save Logano had on lap one off turn 2 was incredible. He hit the car that was on the outside of him and got tagged in the left rear. A lesser driver spins out and potentially slams into the inside wall on the backstretch.
Instead, Logano kept the car pointed straight and ended up in sixth at the end of the day with a busted up right-front fender. Oh, and he also had more issues with loose wheels. Imagine if he had a flawless race?
“We just kept battling and had a pit road speeding penalty, a loose wheel again and another loose wheel,” Logano said. “Man, we were two [laps] down and before you know it we were back on the lead lap and had a shot there at the end, 13th to 6th the last 10 laps or so. Man, as fast as that thing was at the end, I wish we were toward the front.”
5. Kyle Larson (LW: 6): The biggest question from the final laps at Atlanta comes down to Larson’s usage of the high line as Keselowski passed him for the lead. Should he have stayed low?
Larson’s car was fast on the bottom lane at the beginning of tire runs throughout the race. But it’s fair to say that he’d be questioned for going low if Keselowski swept by on the high side and took the lead that way. The guy who gets passed for the lead late usually faces second-guessing for whatever he does or doesn’t do.
6. Chase Elliott (LW: 5): Elliott had a top-three car but sped on pit road late in the race. He bounced back to finish fifth. It’s a respectable finish in any context, of course, but it’s hard not to wonder if Elliott would have been the guy to take advantage of Harvick’s miscue if he didn’t have a miscue of his own.
“We rebounded from that,” Elliott said. “We got right back to where we were which was a big gain. Our car was really good. I don’t think Kevin’s car was any better than ours. I think he was just doing a little better job driving than I was and being consistent and doing a good job around the bottom and conserving his tires and still running fast. Something for me to try to improve on coming back.”
7. Kasey Kahne (LW: 11): Kahne’s out here with the best average finish of any Hendrick driver through the first two races. His performance throughout races hasn’t been the greatest, but he’s gotten into position at the end and has two top 10s. If Kahne keeps it up, he’s not going to be on the outside of the playoffs.
But there are still 24 races to go.
8. Martin Truex Jr. (LW: 8): Crazy eights for Truex, who stays in eighth in Power Rankings after finishing eighth at Atlanta. He’s a spot above eighth in the points standings; 23 points behind leader Kevin Harvick.
9. Ryan Blaney (LW: 3): Blaney finished ahead of Jimmie Johnson for the second-straight race. But this time Blaney was 18th and Johnson was 19th. So it’s not exactly a glowing statement from Sunday.
10. Matt Kenseth (LW: NR): Kenseth is another guy who rebounded from a lot of stuff. At one point during Sunday’s race he was two laps down after pit road problems. But thanks to the way the cautions fell over the last half of the race, Kenseth got himself on the lead lap and ended up finishing third.
That’s far better than last year at Atlanta where he stopped being scored for failing to serve a penalty.
11. Trevor Bayne (LW: NR): It’s ridiculously early, but it looks like the Roush turnaround is real. How real is still largely unknown, but the Roush cars had speed at both Atlanta and Daytona. Improvement is vital this season after downsizing to two cars. We’ll see how much improvement there is as the season goes on.
12. Clint Bowyer (LW: NR): Bowyer finished 11th after cutting a tire and hitting the wall. The cut tire likely came from contact with Erik Jones, who put Bowyer three-wide after a restart. Bowyer showed his displeasure with Jones by making contact with Jones down the backstretch.
Not long after that episode, Bowyer was in the wall.
Lucky Dog: The highest-finishing driver at Atlanta who isn’t on this list is Jamie McMurray. He was 10th on Sunday. You go, McMurray.
The DNF: Ryan Newman was heading for a top 10 before a loss of power meant a 35th-place finish.
Dropped Out: Denny Hamlin, Aric Almirola, AJ Allmendinger
