Harvick moves back up top after his second runner-up finish in three starts. And hey, the last time the series raced a track that started with ‘P’, Harvick won (Phoenix). On to Pocono.
More: Harvick: ‘I was swatting flies’
Two straight DNFs for the defending champ are tough to ignore, regardless of whether they were Busch’s fault.
We’re getting close to seeing an all-Busch sweep at the top of these Power Rankings. Could come after Pocono, where the Stewart-Haas Racing driver is the defending pole-winner.
Johnson couldn’t keep up with Truex at Charlotte, and we could see the pair battle again at Pocono, where Johnson has an average finish of 9.5.
More: Johnson on Truex: ‘He wasn’t going to be denied’
Keselowski battled for a top-five finish at Charlotte in one of NASCAR’s most grueling races. It was so grueling, in fact, the Team Penske driver dropped eight pounds.
More: Keselowski loses significant weight in race
Last year’s Coca-Cola 600 winner failed to make it two in a row, but does head to a track where he once won in his first attempt in 2005.
Mr. $1 Million didn’t sweep Charlotte, having been done in by a pit road hiccup. He has a pair of top-four finishes in his last three Pocono races, though.
More: Pit road penalty bites 22
After struggling to open the season, Kenseth now has four top 10s in his past five races.
Truex dominated Sunday’s race, and now heads to a track at which he dominated for a win last year (97 of 160 laps led) at Pocono.
More: Truex sets records, wins Coca-Cola 600
Elliott has run his top-10 finish streak to four in a row, and has a remarkable eight in his last 10 races.
It’s strange to see that Hamlin has top-10 finishes in less than half his races, but he’s notched two in a row.
Earnhardt and Co. aren’t meeting their own preseason expectations and now have five straight finishes outside the top 10.
Dillon’s excellent record at Charlotte continued Sunday, as the track now ranks second on his career average-finish list (12.8).
Larson’s average finish at Pocono (9.0) and his only career Cup pole suggest we’ll see the talented driver in the fold yet again this weekend.
Blaney’s only national series experience at Pocono came in 2013 and 2014 in the Camping World Truck Series, but one of his four career wins came there.
Don’t be fooled by McMurray’s poor average finish of 19.1 at Pocono. Over his last eight races there, he has four top 10s and no finishes lower than 17th.
Newman really excels at Pocono (12.8 average finish), but struggled last year with finishes of 39th and 23rd.
Kahne won at Pocono as recently as 2013, but has two finishes of 42nd and 43rd since 2014.
Stenhouse Jr. has just two top 10s on the year, and has yet to come close to getting one at Pocono, too.
Bad news first, for AJ: Allmendinger has just two top-10 finishes in 16 races at Pocono. Good news: one of them was last summer at the Pennsylvania track.