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Power Rankings: Harvick’s path to Phoenix all but a formality at Texas?
By Pat DeCola | Saturday, October 24, 2020
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NASCAR.com's Pat DeCola ranks the eight remaining 2020 NASCAR Playoffs drivers after the race at Kansas Speedway and before the race at Texas Motor Speedway.
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8. Kurt Busch (-3)
Comment: Busch has now put together a three-race stretch with two finishes of 32nd or worse, in the midst of an 11-race stretch with just three top 10s. Simply put, that won't get it done at this stage of the season. Busch appeared to have a shot at the Championship 4 after a strong Roval run, but we can all but close the book on that after a 38th-place result at Kansas (engine failure).
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7. Martin Truex Jr. (--)
Comment: Once his bread-and-butter in the not-too-distant past, intermediate tracks in 2020 have not produced any wins for Truex, with another one on the docket this weekend. With a 14.0 average finish (29th earlier this year), Texas stands as his second-worst among 1.5-milers. Approaching near must-win territory, his first Lone Star victory could not come at a better time than this weekend.
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6. Alex Bowman (+2)
Comment: Bowman continues to turn heads as he methodically does what he needs to do throughout the playoff run, notching his seventh top 10 (third top five) in the last nine races. A 22.1 average finish at Texas stands as worst among the playoff drivers, but a fifth-place run in this race last fall and his recent success carry more weight than his full history there.
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5. Brad Keselowski (+1)
Comment: Bet you didn't think that the Team Penske driver teetering on the cutline after Kansas would be the one with four wins since NASCAR's restart in May -- and not the one whose only previous 2020 wins came before the pandemic. Here we are, however, and Keselowski's playoff positioning is a bit precarious, despite his strong summer and fall stretch. Texas stands as a mediocre-at-best track for him, with a pedestrian 17.3 average finish, no wins and just nine top 10s in 24 starts.
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4. Denny Hamlin (-1)
Comment: Do Hamlin and the No. 11 team have the juice to make it all the way to Victory Lane at Phoenix? For most of this season, that was a no-brainer ... but just three top 10s in his last nine races is enough of a cause for concern. It still looks likely he'll at least make the Championship 4, but he might need to depend on a strong Martinsville in a week and a half rather than setting his cruise control to the desert.
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3. Chase Elliott (-1)
Comment: Elliott may currently be below the cutline, but he sure looks destined to advance to Phoenix looking at the numbers. His 11.1 average finish at Texas ranks second among playoff drivers (though he was 32nd in this race last fall), and he's been a consistent presence at the front of the field for the entirety of the playoffs, averaging 46.86 laps led across seven postseason contests thus far.
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2. Joey Logano (+2)
Comment: It's "The Big 3 and Me" all over again, except right now "The Big 3" are the trio of undecided spots in the Championship 4, with Logano being the only one locked in. Though he could conceivably take his foot off the gas a bit and coast into Phoenix -- extremely unlikely given who we're referring to -- Logano could actually make it two in a row this weekend. He has one victory under his belt at Texas and has finished worse than seventh there just once since 2015.
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1. Kevin Harvick (--)
Comment: There's nobody out there expecting Harvick to miss the Championship 4 at this point, right? Clinching is just a formality, and it could come as soon as this weekend. The Closer has won the last three playoff races at Texas, was fifth in the spring and has the best average finish there of all playoff drivers (10.2).
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