Power Rankings: Strong stats, extra motivation have Byron primed for Kansas

By Pat DeCola | Tuesday, May 10, 2022

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NASCAR.com's Pat DeCola ranks the top 20 NASCAR Cup Series drivers after the race at Darlington Raceway and before Sunday's race at Kansas Speedway (3 p.m. ET, FS1).

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20. Denny Hamlin (--)

Season-high: 5

Season-low: 20

Comment: This man can't catch a break. We're only a third of the way into the season and yet Hamlin would need to finish in the top 10 in every remaining race just to match his 2021 total. Kansas, at least, shapes up nicely for a rebound as it's one of Hamlin's best tracks of late. Then again, so was Darlington.

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19. Chris Buescher (-1)

Season-high: 18

Season-low: Out

Comment: Buescher has been better than you think this year. Taking out a pair of crash-related finishes at Auto Club (35th) and Talladega (38th), his average finish is 14.1. Hypothetically, that would slot him in between Ross Chastain (14.0) and Joey Logano (14.3) for eighth-best in the series. Last year at Kansas he averaged a finish of 10.0, too.

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18. Austin Cindric (+1)

Season-high: 10

Season-low: 19

Comment: Though Cindric cut his finishing position in half from a week before, the hunt for the top 10 continues for the rookie. Kansas was one of the tracks he got a start at last year in the No. 33, turning in one of his better finishes of the season (22nd).

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17. Erik Jones (-3)

Season-high: 14

Season-low: Out

Comment: Don't mind that 25th-place finish and dip in the rankings — Jones was a presence near the front of the field in this race, like he has been in so many other weeks of late to the surprise of many. Overall, the No. 43 is headed in the right direction, with Jones now getting to take on the track where he made his first Cup start and once knocked off a five-race stint of top sevens.

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16. Daniel Suárez (--)

Season-high: 13

Season-low: Out

Comment: Finally, the speed matched the result here. Suárez has had fast cars but Darlington was his first top 10 since Atlanta. Kansas could present a problem, however. He averages a finish outside the top 20 and has just one top 10 — all the way back in 2017.

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15. Chase Briscoe (-3)

Season-high: 10

Season-low: 15

Comment: Briscoe's last two finishes were inside the top 20 after two outside it, but overall he has slipped from third in the standings after Atlanta to 13th after Darlington. He finished 19th and 20th last year at Kansas, but did win his last Xfinity start there in 2020.

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14. Tyler Reddick (+3)

Season-high: 7

Season-low: 17

Comment: Darlington is definitely a Reddick kind of track, and he delivered (though he had some help getting that runner-up as a result of the run-in that happened in front of him). He picked up a top 10 in this Kansas race last year, and he could just be about to get things rolling here.

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13. Austin Dillon (+2)

Season-high: 10

Season-low: 20

Comment: Dillon has top 10s in half of the season's 12 races this year. Extrapolated over the full season, 18 top 10s would be five more than a career-high 13 in 2016. He has five such finishes at Kansas, two of which came last year.

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12. Aric Almirola (+1)

Season-high: 11

Season-low: Out

Comment: Small progress, but at Darlington, Almirola picked up his second-best finish since three-straight top 10s to open 2022. Kansas didn't go well for him last year (29th, 26th), but before that, he had four top 10s in seven races.

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11. Kevin Harvick (--)

Season-high: 5

Season-low: 12

Comment: Harvick isn't having a "bad" season, but even after his P4 at Darlington, he's on pace for his worst points finish and average finish since 2009. He could really shift his season on Sunday, though — it's almost impossible to think of a Kansas race happening and him not being among the front-runners at the end.

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10. Christopher Bell (--)

Season-high: 10

Season-low: Out

Comment: Bell isn't leading a ton — some, but not a ton — of laps yet, but he has now turned in five top-seven finishes in seven races. The No. 20 driver has yet to lead a lap at Kansas but does have two top 10s in the last three races there.

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9. Martin Truex Jr. (-1)

Season-high: 4

Season-low: 9

Comment: Similarly to fellow former "Big 3" member Kevin Harvick, Truex isn't having a bad season either, it's just down based on his standards. The No. 19 driver is essentially putting together his worst numbers since a 2014 season in which he missed the playoffs and finished 24th. Fret not, however, because he probably hasn't forgotten how to dominate at Kansas, a track where he has five straight top 10s and swept in 2017.

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8. Kyle Larson (-2)

Season-high: 1

Season-low: 6

Comment: The No. 5 isn't lacking in the speed department and obviously not in the driver talent one, either, so there's not quite a reason to worry. Still, it's Larson's fourth DNF after just two all of last year. Luckily for him, he's the most recent winner at Kansas and all could be smooth from here.

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7. Alex Bowman (-2)

Season-high: 5

Season-low: 13

Comment: Certainly a frustrating day at Darlington for Bowman and the No. 48 group at Darlington that ended a strong stretch from a Vegas win to last week's top five at Dover. He'll look to get it going again at a Kansas track where he has finished 11th or better in six of the last seven races.

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6. Kyle Busch (-3)

Season-high: 2

Season-low: 11

Comment: A frustrating day at Darlington stopped a nice stretch for Busch as well, with his wreck ending a five-race top-10 streak that included a win. Probably helps that he's the defending race winner heading into the weekend, though.

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5. Ryan Blaney (-1)

Season-high: 1

Season-low: 10

Comment: He's still second in points — as he has been for five straight weeks — but Blaney now has a three-race stretch outside the top 10. He has been heavily hit-or-miss at Kansas, with six top-seven finishes in 14 starts but seven of 20th or worse as well, including two last year.

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4. William Byron (+3)

Season-high: 1

Season-low: 16

Comment: Byron looked set to sail toward a series-best third win of 2022 but instead was saddled with his fourth straight finish outside the top 10. He'll certainly be driving with plenty of steam on Sunday, and with five straight Kansas top 10s to his credit, he's likely to compete for the win again.

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3. Joey Logano (+6)

Season-high: 2

Season-low: 9

Comment: Logano is on pace for his worst average finish since he missed the playoffs in 2017, but that's probably the last thing on his mind after showing he has every bit of what it takes and then some to be a major factor this year. He could definitely make it two in a row — he has three Kansas wins, though all in the fall race — but it'll be interesting to see how he's raced by the No. 24 the rest of the way.

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2. Ross Chastain (--)

Season-high: 2

Season-low: Out

Comment: Chastain turned in his third-worst finish of the year at Darlington after a crash ... while he was racing for the lead on a restart. He had a car capable of winning and still managed to score 26 points. He has yet to see the top 10 at Kansas through six starts there, though was much better there last year (14th, 13th) and will likely be in the mix this weekend.

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1. Chase Elliott (--)

Season-high: 1

Season-low: 4

Comment: Elliott is really stabilizing as one of the top drivers on a weekly basis this year and hasn't scored fewer than 33 points in a race since Auto Club, securing the standings lead by 65 points. There are no signs of letting up, either, with Elliott putting together a 4.57 average finish at Kansas over the last seven races.

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