Power Rankings: Some clarity as Carl Edwards stays No. 1
1. Carl Edwards (LW: 1): After struggling to figure out who deserved the top spot last week, there’s no such mental gymnastics needed this week. Edwards gets to stay at No. 1 after he knocked teammate Kyle Busch out of the way for the win at Richmond. While his move for the win has gotten a lot of attention, it’s imperative to not forget what Edwards did in the closing laps of that race. He got in position to make the bump on Busch by pressing the issue every lap. He was trying different lines and driving styles to force Busch to push as hard as possible. And it eventually paid off.
2. Kyle Busch (LW: 3): Busch has every right to be mad after what happened. No one likes losing a race, and no one likes getting knocked out of the way to lose a race. But there’s a difference between being unhappy and being angry/compelled to retaliate, and what Edwards did to Busch falls in the unhappy category. And if you’re unhappy about the finish — and you aren’t a Kyle Busch fan — what the hell is wrong with you?
3. Jimmie Johnson (LW: 4): Johnson finished third on Sunday, so he gets to move up to the matching position in Power Rankings. He had one of the best cars of the day, but it wasn’t the best car. That honor could have gone to three or four other drivers and teams. But the No. 48 team stayed near the front all day and didn’t make any mistakes to jeopardize their great track position. As boring as that sounds, it’s becoming a bigger and bigger accomplishment in the Cup Series.
4. Dale Earnhardt Jr. (LW: 2): Junior ended up 13th. He could have gotten a better finish had there not been so many cautions in the second half of the race. He had a long run car and his car ended up getting real tight over the final two runs of the race. And going back to the Kyle Busch entry for a moment, here’s what Junior said about the finish. “It was awesome. I know Kyle was probably disappointed, but it’s short track racing man. The fans come to see something like that. If you can reach them, if you can get to them on the last lap you better be leaning on them a little bit. He didn’t wreck him; as long as you don’t put a guy in the fence.”
5. Joey Logano (LW: 5): Logano came back to finish eighth after going a lap down at one point in the race. As the vast majority of the top 10 starters stayed in the top 10 for most of the day, Logano had a fight to get back to the top 10. He started second but simply didn’t have any long-run speed to start the race. Given that the first caution of the race came on lap 158, that was a problem. At one point, Logano fell as far back to 25th, but with some good adjustments and the Lucky Dog on lap 269 after contact with Tony Stewart cut Stewart’s tire, Logano was back on the lead lap.
6. Kevin Harvick (LW: 6): Harvick finished fifth and once again got a top five finish and led multiple laps (63) with a car that was far from perfect. 41 of those laps led came during the middle sections of the race — and with good reason. That’s when Harvick said his car was performing the best. He was too loose to start, and then it wasn’t as good at the end as it was in the middle. “We threw a lot at it and just never could find that magic balance for the car that we had there in the middle of the race,” Harvick said.
7. Kurt Busch (LW: 7): Before the final caution of the race it certainly looked like the battle for the win was going to come down to Kurt or Kyle Busch. Instead, Kurt lost four spots on pit road and ended up playing a lot more defense than offense as he slid back to 10th during the race’s final 36 laps.
8. Brad Keselowski (LW: 9): Keselowski and the No. 2 team were the only top 10 team to try a tire strategy move for track position. It was worth the shot even if it didn’t pay off. He inherited the lead on lap 275 following a six-lap green flag run as the rest of the field pitted behind him. Six laps on his tires felt like 60 laps as Keselowski kept the lead for six of the next seven laps before ceding to Kurt Busch. He finished 11th.
9. Chase Elliott (LW: 8): Elliott was a spot behind Keselowski in 12th. We’re going to mainly take this time to emphasize just how awesome his four-wide move on an early-race restart was. You know, the one Tony Stewart said was “sexy.” Elliott timed the restart perfectly and occupied the lane at the top to go around Stewart. Stewart, who was ahead of Elliott, tried the same thing, just a fraction too late and as Elliott was already alongside him. The rookie has very little fear.
10. Martin Truex Jr. (LW: 10): Truex started 22nd and finished ninth. He was one of only two drivers who finished in the top 10 that didn’t start there. He’s 10th in the points standings through nine races, ahead of drivers like Kasey Kahne, Matt Kenseth and Ryan Newman. Yet it feels like a bit of a slump given that Truex was third in the standings after Richmond last season.
11. Kasey Kahne (LW: NR): Kahne got his best finish of the year at Richmond with a fourth. Is everything trending upwards for the No. 5 team? “I think it’s more being together, being a group, a solid team,” Kahne said of his team’s recent performance. “As we do that, we’ve been getting better each week. To me that started three, four weeks ago. Each week it seems to get better from the previous week. We’re going to keep heading in that direction, I know that, and hopefully the performance stays the same.”
12. Denny Hamlin (LW: NR): Hamlin came back to finish sixth at what’s considered his home track. He had to pick his way through the field early in the race after his team was penalized for an uncontrolled tire violation on pit road. But to counter that early miscue, his team ended up being the fastest of the day over seven stops.
Lucky Dog: Matt Kenseth got his second top-10 of the season. Yet his seventh-place finish put him fourth out of the four JGR teams. That feels appropriate.
The DNF: All 40 cars were running at the end of the race, so we’ll give it to Brian Scott. He was the driver that dropped the most spots from his starting position (20th) to his finishin position (35th). But he did have a taco truck parked in the driver lot all weekend.
Dropped Out: Trevor Bayne, Matt DiBenedetto
