Power Rankings: Once foe, now friendly Kansas could click for Kyle Busch
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NASCAR.com's Pat DeCola ranks the top 20 NASCAR Cup Series drivers after Denny Hamlin's win at Dover Motor Speedway and before Sunday's race at Kansas Speedway (3 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
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20. Noah Gragson (Not ranked last week)
Season-high: 20
Season-low: Out
Comment: What's remarkable isn't the fact that Gragson is an unexpected but respectable 21st in the standings this deep into the season -- it's that he's doing so after incurring a major points penalty in the first few weeks and he's battled back to fight for a playoff spot. Four top 10s -- the same amount as the No. 1 driver in these rankings -- certainly help and it honestly feels reasonable that Gragson makes it three straight this weekend at Kansas, a track he was itching to get to after the race on Sunday.
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19. Austin Cindric (--)
Season-high: 18
Season-low: Out
Comment: Cindric is still doing just enough to stay afloat but the fact that he finally scored 20-plus points in back-to-back races at Talladega and Dover for just the second time this season, while good for some short-term momentum, is concerning over the long-term. He's yet to land a top 10 at Kansas (five races) but narrowly missed one in his first start there in the No. 2 in 2022, finishing 11th.
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18. Daniel Suárez (-1)
Season-high: 12
Season-low: Out
Comment: Perhaps we'll see a turnaround with another mile-and-a-half on tap this weekend, but Suárez's top five at Texas is starting to feel more like an outlier than the norm as it continues to be his lone top 10 other than a win in Week 2. No. 99's overall Kansas numbers aren't excellent, but he has led in two of the past three there and turned in a top 10 in the playoffs two years ago.
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17. Bubba Wallace (-3)
Season-high: 10
Season-low: 19
Comment: Two of Wallace's worst finishes of the season -- for a total of seven points -- have come in the past two weekends, directly after the two weekends in which he posted the most points. Such is motorsports, but Wallace has as good a chance as any to rebound majorly this weekend at Kansas, where he won in 2022 and was top five in this race last year.
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16. Chris Buescher (--)
Season-high: 11
Season-low: 16
Comment: Buescher's 14.7 average finish would rank second-best in his career, and yet it's hard not to think he's leaving some on the table -- the No. 17 hasn't finished in the top 10 since March. Kansas doesn't line up as a strong track for RFK Racing, either, so the skid could continue.
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15. Christopher Bell (-3)
Season-high: 4
Season-low: 15
Comment: Bell has finished 34th or worse in three of the past four races for a total of 10 points, meaning the 2023 Championship 4 driver has scored single-digit points in half of this season's 11 races. It's really hard to think he's going to see that trend continue over the full 36, so most of his bad luck might just be behind him at this point. He could turn it around in a big way at Kansas, where he's led laps in four straight races and has three top 10s in those contests.
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14. Joey Logano (+1)
Season-high: 5
Season-low: 20
Comment: Logano still has a ways to go -- and he's still been shut out of the top 10 in three straight -- but things have stabilized here to a degree and we're hitting a portion of the season in which Logano can capitalize. The two-time champ has won at each of the next four regular-season tracks, most of all at Kansas, where he has three total victories and turned in a 5.5 average finish last year.
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13. Chase Briscoe (-2)
Season-high: 11
Season-low: Out
Comment: Briscoe still isn't quite in that tier of drivers capable of contending for wins each and every week, but it's notable that it feels like his "bad days" this year are finishes like Dover's P19 instead of, say, P29. If he's consistently a front third-of-the-field driver he'll find ways to maximize his stronger opportunities as he rounds into form as a series veteran. A dominant run at Kansas in 2020 in the Xfinity Series makes it feel like the track will eventually be one that falls into his favor in Cup and, though it hasn't translated yet, it could be a good proving ground for him this weekend after a sixth-place run at Texas a few weeks back.
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12. Brad Keselowski (-2)
Season-high: 10
Season-low: 18
Comment: With some serious momentum heading to Dover coming off back-to-back runner-ups, Keselowski ... wound up with seven total points after a P30. Not quite what No. 6 was looking for as he now heads to a track at which he has just one top 10 in the past four races.
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11. Kyle Busch (+7)
Season-high: 3
Season-low: 18
Comment: For as up-and-down as Busch's season has been through just 11 races so far ... in an alternate reality where his No. 8 Chevrolet is five inches longer, he's locked into the playoffs with an Atlanta win and a top five at Dover is just par for the course. Instead, it felt like a much-needed breath of fresh air, and he could actually keep it rolling at Kansas, where he's had many more good runs than bad ones lately -- a trait that very much was not always true for him at the track which was formerly his nemesis.
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10. Ross Chastain (-2)
Season-high: 5
Season-low: 14
Comment: Chastain hasn't seen a top-10 finish since COTA, but all told isn't performing terribly and is on pace to match his career-best 13.3 average finish from 2022. Before finishing 13th in last fall's playoff race, Chastain had notched three straight top sevens at Kansas, so he could be a sneaky contender this weekend at a track many seem to be anointing Toyota as the manufacturer to beat.
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9. Alex Bowman (+4)
Season-high: 9
Season-low: 18
Comment: While Bowman didn't win Dover like we teased he might in this piece last week, No. 48 did turn in his second-best points day of the season as he continued to whittle down a career-best 13.6 average finish. The 2019 Kansas spring race runner-up has a strong 50% top-10 rate in his 16 races there and likely had this race circled last year -- before missing it with injury -- after leading 107 laps in the 2022 fall race. Another strong opportunity ahead for him on Sunday.
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8. Ty Gibbs (+1)
Season-high: 4
Season-low: 9
Comment: Gibbs finally landed back in the top 10 again after a four-race absence and, somehow, his average finish for the season remains at a sterling 11.5. Just goes to show you how strong he's been all year and the 2021 Kansas Xfinity Series winner likely has another good weekend ahead of him. Maybe it's the weekend, if you know what I mean.
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7. Ryan Blaney (--)
Season-high: 2
Season-low: 7
Comment: Blaney has led in three straight races and is capable of winning just about anywhere -- including this weekend ahead -- but still feels just outside the Gibbs/Hendrick battle at the front of the field at the moment. Kansas is an interesting track for him, as he clearly showed the capability to contend there early on (five top-seven finishes from 2015-18) but something isn't clicking there lately (just two top 10s since).
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6. Tyler Reddick (-3)
Season-high: 3
Season-low: 14
Comment: If you're gonna finish outside the top 10 like Reddick did at Dover, it can get a lot worse than walking away with the 38 points (seven more than sixth-place finisher Noah Gragson) that he did. Especially when you consider that he now shifts his focus to one of his best tracks and one at which he's the most recent winner.
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5. Chase Elliott (-1)
Season-high: 4
Season-low: 17
Comment: Fret not about Elliott's minor drop here; he was leap-frogged by Sunday's winner and otherwise is still trending quite well, on pace for a career-best 10.3 average finish. He's still somehow flying under the radar as a championship favorite -- which he very much is -- but there's an extremely strong chance he settles that once and for all at Kansas, where he's finished in the top five in 37.5% of his starts and has a 10.6 average finish.
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4. Martin Truex Jr. (+1)
Season-high: 1
Season-low: 10
Comment: Truex has been so good this season that it truly makes no sense that he's still winless to this point, and we're only talking about 11 races. There's no way he maintains a 9.4 average finish without stumbling upon a win or several, and it's hard to see him escaping the month of May (which features some of his best tracks) without a trophy.
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3. William Byron (-2)
Season-high: 1
Season-low: 7
Comment: The Stage 1 runner-up at Dover, Byron was capable of putting together a nice afternoon before running into trouble and wrecking out with Bubba Wallace and Christopher Bell. His three wins allow him to swallow the DNF unfazed and he'll have a great shot to collect his first Kansas win this weekend.
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2. Denny Hamlin (+4)
Season-high: 1
Season-low: 9
Comment: What's the best way to rebound from a one-point day at Talladega? Well, why not just win at Dover the next week, right? Hamlin has won three of the past seven races and the fact that he's the only driver to lead in every race this season suggests there are plenty more trips to Victory Lane on the horizon for him. The four-time Kansas winner is just absolutely dialed in at that track at the moment -- and won this race last year -- so there's a strong chance he goes back-to-back and claims the No. 1 spot next week.
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1. Kyle Larson (+1)
Season-high: 1
Season-low: 5
Comment: Even though Larson has top 10s in just half of this season's 11 races, doesn't it just feel like he's battling for the lead late just about every week? He's not quite on a 2021-type path of gaudy numbers, but he and the No. 5 team look as well-oiled this year as they have since then and Larson himself is already more than halfway to last season's laps led count of 1,127. He's been dominant at Kansas even dating back to the tail end of his Ganassi days and there's literally no reason to think No. 5 won't be among those to beat once again Sunday.