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Power Rankings: Kyle Larson heating up; Dover domination ahead?
By Pat DeCola | Published: May 10, 2021 21
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NASCAR.com's Pat DeCola ranks the top 20 NASCAR Cup Series drivers after the race at Darlington and before Sunday's race at Dover International Speedway (2 p.m. ET, FS1).
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
20. Bubba Wallace (Not ranked last week)
Season-high: 13th
Season-low: Out
Comment: Still in search of his first top 10 of the season, Wallace has kept the car clean in nearly every race and settled in as a consistent top-20 presence. You can say almost the exact same thing about his Dover history, as he's yet to land a top 10 with all six of his starts resulting in finishes of 20th to 27th.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
19. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (--)
Season-high: 12
Season-low: Out
Comment: Stenhouse put in a better finish than his previous two races, but after a 20th-place result he's earned just 27 total points the past three weeks. While he has a pedestrian 20.6 average finish at Dover, two of his last five races there netted top 10s. They also netted a pair of finishes 33rd or worse.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
18. Ryan Newman (+2)
Season-high: 18
Season-low: Out
Comment: If we look past a 30th-place run at Richmond a few weeks back, Newman owns a 12.67 average finish in the other five races dating back to Bristol. That's playoff territory. Though he has no top 10s at Dover since 2017, this weekend could conceivably be another above-average entry for him. He excelled at the Monster Mile early in his career, with three wins in his first six starts.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
17. Matt DiBenedetto (-3)
Season-high: 14
Season-low: Out
Comment: Darlington marked Matty D's worst finish (19th, still not awful) since Miami, an eight-race stretch where he averaged a finish of 10.5. It'll be interesting to see how he performs at Dover, where he only has one top 10 (2019) in 12 starts but led double-digit laps in both 2020 races.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
16. Tyler Reddick (+1)
Season-high: 16
Season-low: Out
Comment: Reddick continues to be a factor in races and, though he snapped a two-race top-10 run (finished 12th at Darlington), collected his second-most points of the season (36). He's been relatively successful at Dover across all three series, including a win there in the Camping World Truck Series in 2015.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
15. Michael McDowell (-3)
Season-high: 10
Season-low: Out
Comment: That's two 27th-place finishes in the past four races and no non-superspeedway top 10s since Miami for McDowell, who is hanging onto a top-15 spot in the standings by a thread. Dover is among his worst tracks, with no finish better than 19th in 20 starts and an average result of 32.0.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
14. Alex Bowman (+1)
Season-high: 8
Season-low: 17
Comment: Bowman's lone top 10 since a third-place finish at Atlanta was his win at Richmond, and he hasn't been particularly close in the other five races. I'm honestly not sure what to make of that, but this weekend could be another where we see No. 48 sneak up on the competition and rekindle the Monster Mile magic. He has three top fives in the past four Dover races, including a runner-up in 2019.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
13. Chris Buescher (+3)
Season-high: 13
Season-low: Out
Comment: The Roush Fenway Racing driver has put together back-to-back top 10s for the first time since Bristol/Las Vegas late last summer (coincidentally, also an eighth-/ninth-place combo). He's never had three straight in his career and, while he has never finished top 10 at Dover, it's not impossible to think he could do it on Sunday -- Buescher averaged a finish of 15.0 in last year's races.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
12. Austin Dillon (-1)
Season-high: 11
Season-low: 16
Comment: Dillon continues to collect a decent amount of points weekly, scoring fewer than 20 (16, at Bristol) just once since a six-point clunker at Daytona's Road Course. He's essentially averaged a top 15 (14.55) at Dover in the nine races since a 33rd-place run in 2016, so he should have another productive weekend ahead.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
11. Christopher Bell (+2)
Season-high: 8
Season-low: 16
Comment: Bell sliced his 28th-place Kansas run in half for a 14th-place result at Darlington, but he's still looking for his first top 10 since a fourth-place run at Richmond. He was shut out of the top 20 in last year's Dover races but notched a pair of back-to-back wins there in the Xfinity Series in 2018-19.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
10. Brad Keselowski (-6)
Season-high: 2
Season-low: 11
Comment: Keselowski fell back off the horse this weekend, dropping like a rock from the pole position and settling in 24th. Those five top 10s in 12 races look a little more concerning after a race like that, though he should certainly be in for a recovery this weekend. A 2012 Dover winner, Keselowski has averaged a top 10 (10.0) in the past seven races there.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
9. Chase Elliott (--)
Season-high: 1
Season-low: 10
Comment: If you want to know how the defending champ's season has gone so far, a third of his 2021 top 10s have come in the past two weeks. He'll take it, though, especially as the series turns to Dover, where (save for a pair of unfortunate results in 2019 and '20) he's averaged a finish of 4.5 his other eight starts.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
8. Joey Logano (-3)
Season-high: 2
Season-low: 8
Comment: Logano has started to slide a bit -- with no top 10s in the past three races -- though there's likely no reason to worry for No. 22 fans just yet. He's never won at Dover, but does have top 10s in 14 of his 24 starts there, with four in the last five races.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
7. Ryan Blaney (--)
Season-high: 5
Season-low: 15
Comment: For all the ups and downs his Penske cohorts seem to have gone through this season, Blaney has pretty consistently been a top-10 presence. He has just two top 10s at Dover in 10 tries with an uninspiring 19.6 average finish, but he's been close. Four of the last five races there netted finishes of 11th to 15th.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
6. Kyle Busch (+2)
Season-high: 6
Season-low: 14
Comment: Is Rowdy back? Well, there are certainly signs pointing to yes, but his 12.4 average finish so far is still his second-worst since a confounding 17.6 in a one-win 2014 season. With a strong Dover history (three wins, 13.8 average finish), Sunday could prove fertile soil for Busch to reestablish the notion that he's among -- if not the -- best in the sport.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
5. Kyle Larson (+5)
Season-high: 2
Season-low: 14
Comment: Larson added his second runner-up of the season a week after leading 132 laps at Kansas and faltering late. At this juncture, he feels like a driver who's bound for a deep playoff run, with some things to clean up before then. There's a strong chance he could dominate at Dover, where he picked up his final Chip Ganassi Racing win and has averaged a ridiculous 7.4 finish.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
4. Kevin Harvick (+2)
Season-high: 1
Season-low: 9
Comment: Though still winless, Harvick has had far more hits than misses in 2021 and is enjoying a nice season that still feels bound to break open at some point. As the most recent Dover winner with no finishes worse than sixth since 2017, it could be this weekend.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
3. William Byron (--)
Season-high: 3
Season-low: 18
Comment: There's one driver with 10 top-10 finishes in 2021, and you're looking at him. They've all come in a row, to boot. He notched a top five the last time out at Dover, so there's no reason to think 2021's biggest surprise driver won't keep it rolling on Sunday.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
2. Denny Hamlin (-1)
Season-high: 1
Season-low: 4
Comment: Hamlin snapped a dismal -- by his standards -- two-race slump with a top-five finish at Darlington, though it was certainly a race weekend that looked like he could snap his winless drought in as well. As the defending Dover spring race winner, Hamlin could certainly break through this weekend, though Dover (16.6 average finish) hasn't historically been a track he's mastered.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
1. Martin Truex Jr. (+1)
Season-high: 2
Season-low: 7
Comment: Truex finally topples his winless -- but very points-dominant -- teammate for the No. 1 spot here. Turns out, three wins and stomping the field at Darlington did the trick. The New Jersey native loves racing at Dover, as evidenced by his three career victories and honestly-hard-to-believe 1.75 average finish over the last four races there.