NASCAR Power Rankings: Kyle Busch and the drivers Nos. 2-12
Welcome back to Power Rankings for the 2019 Cup Series season. We’re never going to cut horsepower here.
1. Kyle Busch (LW: 1)
Busch has won at least one race in each of the past seven weekends. How insane is that? He got his third Cup Series win of the season at Bristol on Sunday, has won three of his four Xfinity Series starts and has won in all four of his Truck Series starts so far in 2019.
This is a streak that’s unlikely to continue into an eighth weekend. Like at Bristol, Busch is only running in the Cup race next week at Richmond. But it feels foolish to bet against Busch at this point. He’s got an average finish of 3.4 in the Cup Series. That’s another thing that’s insane.
2. Denny Hamlin (LW: 2)
Hey look, Hamlin got a pit road speeding penalty on Sunday. He still finished fifth, a finish that Hamlin said was more than the team deserved. Hamlin was one of the cars that stayed out during the final caution at the end of the race.
“We kind of hung around that 10th to 13th place all day and then we just got it closer there at the end, and that’s when we kind of made a charge towards the front - that and some good strategy,” Hamlin said. “I screwed up our strategy on pit lane. We’ll get it cleaned up. Just got to work through all the kinks and clean stuff up. We didn’t have a race-winning car. Top-five finish with a car that probably shouldn’t have been there is a good day.”
3. Joey Logano (LW: 6)
Logano finished third and would have likely won the race had he not pitted for tires on the race’s final caution with 22 laps to go. He was leading after passing teammate Brad Keselowski.
Instead of keeping the track position, Logano and crew chief Todd Gordon opted for fresh rubber. With six drivers staying out on the track — including race-winner Kyle Busch — the fresh-tire strategy didn’t work.
“I was pretty confident we were gonna be able to do that for 15 laps or so and then the caution came out and what do you do? Do you pit? Do you stay out? You know a few of them are gonna stay out,” Logano said. “It’s really hard to pass and by the time I got to third those cars were so far ahead of me I was stuck and was not going to get to them. It stinks when you have the fastest car and don’t win, but it’s a team sport and it takes every piece to make it work. We had the car part figured out today, we just missed it on some other ends and just have to keep fighting hard.
4. Kevin Harvick (LW: 3)
Harvick’s Sunday was the most eventful of anyone. His car failed pre-race inspection three times so he had to start at the back of the field and do a pass-through penalty on pit road at the beginning of the race.
That immediately took him off the lead lap despite having an extremely fast (and legal) car. An unscheduled pit stop put him more laps down. He worked his way back toward the lead lap and then hit the wall because of a tire problem.
And, somehow, Harvick was in position for the free pass on the last caution of the day. He got back on the lead lap and finished 12th.
5. Clint Bowyer (LW: 5)
Bowyer hit the wall because of a flat tire, too. Like Harvick, the damage wasn’t too bad. He ended up finishing seventh.
The flat tire came after some contact while racing with Logano. While Bowyer had a terrible car on restarts, he had an extremely fast one as the race went green for extended periods of time.
“We just barely touched and it must have cut the valve stem out of it or something and hit it just right,” Bowyer said. “Maybe his fender caught it or something, I don’t know. That’s about typical luck for here. You’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t.”
6. Ryan Blaney (LW: 7)
Blaney finished fourth and led 158 laps, the most of anyone. It’s a little unfair to bump him up just one spot because of that performance but it’s also unfair to drop anyone ahead of him. Sorry Ryan, you’re gonna have to settle for sixth.
7. Brad Keselowski (LW: 4)
Keselowski should have finished in the top five. But he got black-flagged by NASCAR for not being in the right spot on the final restart. Keselowski pitted for tires and came out of the pits first among those who stopped. Somehow, NASCAR’s scoring system initially showed Keselowski ahead of two cars that didn’t pit.
NASCAR got the scoring correct, but when it did, Keselowski and his team had already seen the incorrect scoring. A reluctance to give up the incorrectly awarded spot led NASCAR to put the race back green with Keselowski in the wrong spot and ultimately as the recipient of a black flag.
He finished 18th.
8. Kurt Busch (LW: 8)
Busch kinda lucked into the second-place finish he had. He didn’t have a bad car throughout most of the race. He just wasn’t near the lead. But a good decision to stay out meant he restarted alongside his brother and he was able to finish in the top two.
Busch continues to be the best and most consistent Chevy driver so far in 2019.
9. Martin Truex Jr. (LW: 9)
Truex finished 17th. He’s seventh in the points standings but it feels like 2019 has been a disappointment so far. High expectations will do that. He’s going to win a race soon enough, but Truex hasn’t been nearly as good as teammates Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin so far.
10. Daniel Suarez (LW: 12)
Suarez is getting things going. After a pit road penalty that cost him a lap, Suarez got the free pass to get the lap back with less than 80 laps to go and drove back into the top 10. He had a top-10 car for most of the race, so it’s a worthy finish. Though it’s fair to wonder if he could have finished fifth or so without the penalty.
11. Chase Elliott (LW: 11)
Elliott got lucky when NASCAR gave him the free pass to get his lap back after it inexplicably didn’t deem him as being involved in a caution that it said he was involved in.
Elliott also got unlucky when he got spun while leading the race early. He got lucky when he didn’t suffer much damage during that spin.
Anyway, he finished 11th. Good enough to stay in 11th.
12. Jimmie Johnson (LW: NR)
Johnson was 10th. He has back-to-back top-10 finishes for the first time since Richmond and the Charlotte Roval in September.
Lucky Dog: Paul Menard. Some pit strategy got Menard a sixth-place finish.
The DNF: Aric Almirola hit the wall on lap 2 after William Byron’s car wiggled. The damage didn’t look significant, but the crash clock ran out on Almirola’s team and he was forced to retire from the race. He finished last.
Dropped out: Almirola
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Nick Bromberg is a writer for Yahoo Sports.
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