NASCAR Power Rankings - Week 21

It was an interesting race in Dover for these NASCAR drivers in the Top 10, 2 new names enter the top 10 and a big name falls.

Honorable Mention: Chris Buescher was not very good on Sunday. A top 10 finish doesn’t show the struggles the 17 team had all day. When he restarted 9th with 2 laps to go, it was the first time he had been top 10 all day. He was off my list completely, but thanks to a few running outside the top 15, Chris barely maintains some recognition. Chris has been fast at the big tracks this year, with a 2nd at Michigan and a 4th at Pocono. Keep an eye on the 17 come Sunday.

10. Ty Gibbs has been good the last month or so, but a slow start to the season kept him off the list for the past few weeks. Ty has 8 top 15s in a row, half of those being top 10s. Ty’s only finish at the Brickyard is a measly 23rd, but he did lose a cylinder midway through the race. Ty has a 3rd and a 14th at Michigan and Pocono this year, similar tracks to Indy. Finishes do the 54 no good, however: he needs a win.

9. Alex Bowman comes back to the power rankings after a couple months off. Some speed shown late boosts him back to the top 10. Other than a 19th at Sonoma, his worst finish since wrecking at Michigan is an 11th at Pocono. Indianapolis, however, is statistically Alex Bowman’s worst racetrack. Not counting his 2 sub 30s with Tommy Baldwin and BK Racing, Bowman’s average finish at Indy is 28.75, with a best finish of 21st in 2019. 

8. Tyler Reddick had an ok day on Sunday, with a 12th place finish capping off a mediocre day. Reddick still hasn’t won a race this year, but that could easily happen at the Brickyard. In his 2 starts at the rectangle, Reddick has an average finish of 5, along with a 2nd place last year, not to mention he won the pole. He also has a win on the road course layout back in 2022, not that that translates, but still, wins at Indy are wins at Indy. Reddick is a good shot to win on Sunday.

7. Ryan Blaney came home 8th, after running top 10 all day. In a race where it was all Chevy and Toyota, this run looks rather impressive for Blaney, but we can’t pretend that he hasn’t gone a little cold recently. Since winning at Nashville, he only has 2 top 10s, granted, he seemed to have top 10 runs going at Sonoma and Atlanta before being wrecked in both of them. Indianapolis is a hit or miss track for Blaney. He finished 3rd here last year, with a car that probably could’ve won, and he also finished 7th back in 2019. Other than just missing out on a top 10 in both 2015 and 2018, Blaney has 3 sub 20ths to his name, including 2 sub 30ths. It’s time to put up or shut up for Ryan Blaney.

6. Christopher Bell had just about the most up and down day you could imagine. After starting 3rd due to the metric system, Bell finished stage 1 in 2nd and stage 2 in 1st. However, early stage 3, Bell spun going for the lead on Chase Elliott. After he was aided back to the lead by rain, Bell fought Denny Hamlin for the win…before spinning again. Christopher Bell was once this driver who would be fast but consistent; however, recently, he’s looked way more fast and way less consistent. He needs to hone it in before the playoffs in a few weeks, and Indy’s a good place to start. With a 4th last year and a 12th in 2020, Bell needs a fast, consistent run. 

5. Chase Briscoe is apparently the second coming of Martin Truex. 2 of Truex’s best tracks in his career were Sonoma and Dover, and that’s exactly where Briscoe has finished runner up the last 2 weeks. This 19 car seems to have the speed that we haven’t seen in it since the summer of 2023. Briscoe only managed a 20th last year. If we go by the MTJ rule, I wouldn’t be too excited for Briscoe. In Truex’s 17 starts at the Brickyard, he only managed 3 top 10s, and over triple that amount of sub 20ths. Briscoe is his own man, however, and he could easily find his groove. It’s not like two of the best at Indy are sprint car drivers who grew up racing in the area just like Briscoe…oh wait. 

4. I said William Byron could run 4th just as easy as he could finish 30th. He was running 7th when he got wrecked by Christopher Bell and finished 31st…I’ll take what I can get, I guess. Other than a 4th in 2019, Byron has never finished better than 19th at Indy, including a 38th last year after he was wrecked. However, in his lone Xfinity start in 2017 here, Byron did capture the win, however this was using restrictor plates. 

3. Kyle Larson is so good that I have full confidence to move him back into the top 3 after a near-2 month slump, that only saw him lead 3 laps on strategy, came to an end on Sunday. (Just for the record, he still didn’t lead any more laps on Sunday.) Larson finished 4th on Sunday and heads to Indianapolis, a place he just won at last year.

2. Denny Hamlin is really good at Dover. Like, really good. Denny Hamlin, however, is not really good at Indy. In 16 starts, he has 8 top 10s but also 5 sub 20ths. Hamlin has seemed to figure it out slightly over the last decade, as 5 of those 8 top 10s have come since 2014. He has had speed the last few times at the Brickyard, but a cut tire in 2020 and a late race wreck last year have kept him from good finishes. Hamlin’s never finished better than 3rd, something he’s managed to do 3 times. With the speed he’s shown at the big tracks, this year, a win at Michigan and a 2nd at Pocono, it’s not an impossibility he could win Sunday.

1. Chase Elliott made it pretty easy to keep him at the #1 spot. Even though he didn’t win, much less earn a top 5, Elliott led for over half the race and won his first stage of the year, which also netted him enough points to take the regular season points lead. A miscue on pit road by the jackman and some questionable strategy from Alan Gustafson may have kept the 9 car out of victory lane; however, for the first time in over 3 years, Chase Elliott looks like a weekly threat to win races. In terms of Indy, other than an engine failure in 2017, Elliott has only finished outside the top 15 once, with an 18th in his rookie year. However, at the same time, his best finish is only a 9th in 2019. Does Elliott keep up with the top 5s and 10s, or is this simply a hot streak that burns out come playoff time?