Power Rankings: Did Kyle Busch’s stay at No. 1 run out of gas?
Our Power Rankings are far from a scientific formula. In fact, it’s the perfect blend of analytics and bias against your favorite driver. And you think we dislike your favorite driver, so it makes sense, right? Direct all your complaints to us at [email protected].
1. Kyle Busch (LW: 1): Two miles of fuel would have gotten Busch his fifth win of 2015 and his fourth straight. The two miles of fuel may not have been enough to make it to the end, but Busch had a 16-second lead on teammate Matt Kenseth. He would have been able to coast around to the end and beat Kenseth, even if it would have been fairly close. Instead, Busch ran out of gas and he did it in a terrible spot; on the frontstretch past pit road. He ended up 21st. But after qualifying first and putting himself in position for a potential win, we’re not going to punish him.
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2. Kevin Harvick (LW: 2): Harvick represents the conundrum of this week’s Power Rankings. Our top three all had poor finishes while eight of the nine drivers in Nos. 4-12 finished in the top 10. It’s impossible to put Jimmie Johnson in first after finishing sixth, and it’s impossible to make a convincing case for anyone else below to leap above Busch, Logano and Harvick. So here we are, with a guy who finished 42nd in second. That’s what happens when you blow up while running at the front of the field.
3. Joey Logano (LW: 3): The fuel gamble was a worthy one for Logano, who was looking for his second win of the year and is in the Chase. Though when you look in the context of how short of fuel he was (running out with three laps to go), you have to wonder how his team thought he was going to be able to make it. Despite his 20th-place finish, his run at Pocono can be looked at by NASCAR’s marketing department as a perfect encapsulation of the Chase. If he was worried about minimizing a bad finish, he likely would have pitted. A win trumped that because of the Chase implications, so the No. 22 team went for it.
4. Jimmie Johnson (LW: 4): Here’s the power of Johnson and crew chief Chad Knaus. When they pitted for fuel with 38 laps to go they inspired everyone else to head for pit road too. If Johnson waits a couple laps to pit, we may not have the fuel mileage race that we do. But in the copycat world of NASCAR, once Johnson made his stop, other teams felt they needed to get to pit road as soon as they could, hoping for a caution period in the final laps. It didn’t happen and Johnson finished sixth after making a splash-and-go stop near the end.
5. Matt Kenseth (LW: 10): Here’s our biggest leap of the week because of the fuel misfortune of the three drivers running ahead of him in the final laps of Sunday’s race. It was a perfect Kenseth win. Oh there he was, driving a very good but somewhat boring race and in position to steal the spotlight from other drivers who had gotten most of the attention. And even his crew chief Jason Ratcliff thought there would be a caution at the end of the race. “123 was about a lap – we knew it was a lap early, maybe a lap and a half, but if you look back over the last five or six races, you always get a caution,” Ratcliff said. ” … So it was worth a gamble and everybody was taking that gamble … I’m shocked there wasn’t a caution, but I’m really glad there wasn’t one, obviously.”
6. Martin Truex Jr. (LW: 6): Hey, here’s another driver who needed a caution. Truex ran out gas between Logano and Busch. He was second at the time after moving up a spot because of Logano’s lack of gas. And because of it, he missed out on being the eighth driver to sweep both Pocono races and the first driver to do it since Dale Earnhardt Jr. all the way back in 2014. Those races were so, so, so long ago. Truex could have made history.
7. Dale Earnhardt Jr. (LW: 7): Don’t lie, you made a “Windows 10 crashed” joke when Junior’s Windows-sponsored car went spinning on lap 73. If you didn’t, you either have a lot of self-restraint or no sense of humor at all. We applaud the former and mourn the latter. After he spun, Junior worked his way through the field and capitalized on the mess at the end to finish fourth. Is this where we joke that Windows is the fourth-best operating system?
8. Brad Keselowski (LW: 8): The lasting image of Keselowski’s Pocono race won’t be that he finished second but of his crew members flying through the air as he slid through his pit box. After the race, Keselowski said he thought it had been two years since there was a round of green flag pit stops and a full fuel run to the end of a race without a caution flag. So we went back and looked at recent races to see the last time a race ended with a very long green flag run that included pit stops. While it wasn’t a fuel-mileage race, the September Dover race went green for the final 140 laps and winner Jeff Gordon pitted for tires and gas for the final time with more than 70 laps to go.
9. Kurt Busch (LW: 5): Busch told Motorsport.com that he has a handshake deal to return to the seat of the No. 41 in 2016. It shouldn’t be that surprising given the success that Busch has had in his second year with Stewart-Haas Racing. And it also shouldn’t be surprising because there’s nowhere else for Busch to go. Hendrick is full. Joe Gibbs Racing is full. He’s already driven for Penske. A move anywhere else wouldn’t be a lateral one and he would need to find sponsorship. He’s in a great spot.
10. Jeff Gordon (LW: 12): Gordon finshed fifth and is now back in the top 10 in the points standings after his disastrous final Brickyard 400. He could move as high as eighth at Watkins Glen depending on how Kurt Busch and Jamie McMurray do. Gordon is more than likely in the Chase, he just needs to get a win. And a win at Watkins Glen for old times’ sake would be a fitting end to his Cup road course career. Though he’d probably just take a top 10 at this point. After winning four races in five years from 1997-2001 at the Glen, Gordon is winless and has finished in the top 10 just twice.
11. Carl Edwards (LW: 11): Edwards finished 10th at Pocono after starting eigth. Edwards had a top 10 car for most of the day but wasn’t fast enough to challenge for the lead. Edwards was short on fuel and ended up playing it safe at the end by pitting. The move probably got him the top 10 because if he was getting the mileage that Kyle Busch was he would have ended up somewhere in the mid-20s.
12. Clint Bowyer (LW: NR): It’s now two-straight top-10 finishes for the man who has been the story of the garage for the past week. Will Bowyer end up at Ganassi in 2016? Who knows, but we’re going to guess that whatever team he’s driving for in 2016, be it Ganassi, Michael Waltrip Racing or a hybrid of the two teams, he won’t be in a Toyota. Given MWR’s lack of an agreement with the manufacturer in 2016 and Ganassi’s Chevy relationship, we’re betting heavily Bowyer’s back in a car with a bowtie on it.
Dropped Out: Denny Hamlin
Lucky Dog: Greg Biffle. While his Roush teammates either crashed (Ricky Stenhouse Jr.) or had a piece of metal go through the radiator (Trevor Bayne), Biffle finished fifth.
The DNF: Kasey Kahne, who fell out of the “in the Chase right now” standings with his pit road crash.
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Nick Bromberg is the editor of From The Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
