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Power Rankings: Richmond
April 30, 2003
5:45 PM EDT (1745 GMT)

Things look pretty good for Dale Earnhardt Jr. Obviously, the team is showing championship form -- they battled back after a bad mistake on Sunday and scored their fifth straight finish of sixth or better.

It's getting very crowded at the top of the Rankings. A lot of drivers should have moved up, but didn't -- it's getting pretty top-heavy.

Parity's a great thing.

Biggest Gain this Week: Rusty Wallace, up 10 spots

Biggest Drop this Week: Elliott Sadler, Ryan Newman, down five spots

Dropped out: Joe Nemechek (22), Jimmy Spencer (25).

Week 11 of 36, Pontiac Excitement 400 at Richmond International Raceway
Rank Prev Number Driver Comments
 1  1 Dale Earnhardt Jr. Dale Earnhardt Jr. It’ll cost $20 billion to rebuild Iraq. At least half of it will come from selling Dale Jr. T-shirts in downtown Baghdad.
 2  5 Matt Kenseth Matt Kenseth He’s started the season pretty much like Sterling Marlin did last year. He doesn’t talk like Sterling though.
 3  7 Kurt Busch Kurt Busch He’s a huge Cubs fan. If he had a choice between a World Series banner at Wrigley or a Winston Cup championship, well, he could always win the title next year.
 4  3 Jeff Gordon Jeff Gordon Appeared on Channel One after his win at Martinsville. No word on whether he’s on Channel 11 this week.
 5  6 Bobby Labonte Bobby Labonte No one has more top five finishes, which is a fancy, typical-media-extenuates-stats-to-make-them-sound-cool way of saying he’s tied with two other drivers with five each.
 6  4 Jimmie Johnson Jimmie Johnson Sports Illustrated was on his tail last weekend. No word on whether it was them who forced him into the wall on the final lap.
 7  2 Elliott Sadler Elliott Sadler The team changed nearly everything on the car on Saturday, and it didn’t work at all on Sunday. But you should have seen Sadler after Happy Hour: two adorable kids, one five years old, one probably pushing six -- waddled up and meekly asked for autographs, and Sadler spent a good five minutes with them.
 8 14 Sterling Marlin Sterling Marlin He's Dodge's best driver right now.
 9  8 Kevin Harvick Kevin Harvick He won the late model feature at Mesa Marlin on Saturday night, meaning he ran three races this weekend. Unfortunately, only one was with Greg Biffle.
10 20 Rusty Wallace Rusty Wallace Heaven help Jeff Gordon if he’s leading Rusty by a car-length with one lap to go at Richmond.
11 13 Mark Martin Mark Martin That last-lap crash with Jimmie Johnson was a bummer. First he crashes with Jimmie Johnson at the start of the Talladega event last fall, now this. If history and geography are any indication, watch out for a mid-race collision between these two at Kansas.
12  9 Tony Stewart Tony Stewart He threw out the first pitch at an Angels game. Unfortunately, he missed the Rally Monkey.
13 11 Ricky Craven Ricky Craven NASCAR keeps holding all these races at sun-soaked tracks, and the boy still can’t get a tan.
14 12 Greg Biffle Greg Biffle If he’s going to win this season, it’ll be on a short track.
15 10 Ryan Newman Ryan Newman Only the Detroit Tigers suffered more in April.
16 15 Jeff Burton Jeff Burton He faded in the closing laps in California, ending his top-10 streak at one.
17 16 Terry Labonte Terry Labonte He’s got three straight top-15 finishes. He’s also got four straight top 16 finishes. And five straight finishes of 39th or better.
18 18 Michael Waltrip Michael Waltrip Crashed into water barrels the last time they went to Richmond. They aren’t bringing the same car to RIR this weekend – it isn’t dry yet.
19 24 Bill Elliott Bill Elliott The forgotten man at Fontana -- the way he likes it.
20 17 Ricky Rudd Ricky Rudd Virginia driver, Virginia team, Virginia track.
21 18 Dale Jarrett Dale Jarrett New, flat logo!
22 NR Jamie McMurray Jamie McMurray It would have been pretty neat to see him win, but there’s no way he can ever top the Victory Lane celebration he had at Charlotte last October.
23 23 Robby Gordon Robby Gordon If this Robby Gordon/John Andretti/Indy 500 soap opera is for real, then Richmond will have to issue credentials to the National Enquirer.
24 24 Kenny Wallace Kenny Wallace New reality series with Kenny Wallace! First episode: The No. 2 Dodge wins at Richmond. The winner gets out of the car – and FOX reveals that it’s actually Kenny behind the helmet. Monica Lewinsky jumps on roof to celebrate, falls through. Car fails post-race height requirement by three feet. Monica fined $500,000.
25 NR Ward Burton Ward Burton No, we’re not crazy. He’s slowly getting better, even though he’s been better at getting slow.
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ARCHIVES
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• Week 1 at Daytona International Speedway
• Week 2 at North Carolina Speedway
• Week 3 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway
• Week 4 at Atlanta Motor Speedway
• Week 5 at Darlington Raceway
• Week 6 at Bristol Motor Speedway
• Week 7 at Texas Motor Speedway
• Week 8 at Talladega Superspeedway
• Week 9 at Martinsville Speedway
• Week 10 at California Speedway
• Week 11 at Richmond International Raceway
• Week 12 at Lowe's Motor Speedway
• Week 13 at Dover International Speedway
• Week 14 at Pocono Raceway
• Week 15 at Michigan International Speedway
• Week 16 at Infineon Raceway
• Week 17 at Daytona International Speedway
• Week 18 at Chicagoland Speedway
• Week 19 at New Hampshire International Speedway
• Week 20 at Pocono Raceway
• Week 21 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway
• Week 22 at Watkins Glen International
• Week 23 at Michigan International Speedway
• Week 24 at Bristol Motor Speedway
• Week 25 at Darlington Raceway
• Week 26 at Richmond International Raceway
• Week 27 at New Hampshire International Speedway
• Week 28 at Dover International Speedway
• Week 29 at Talladega Superspeedway
• Week 30 at Kansas Speedway
• Week 31 at Lowe's Motor Speedway
• Week 32 at Martinsville Speedway
• Week 33 at Atlanta Motor Speedway
• Week 34 at Phoenix International Raceway
• Week 35 at North Carolina Speedway
• Week 36 at Homestead-Miami Speedway
• Week 37 at Daytona International Speedway
The opinions listed here are solely those of the writer.
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