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Power Rankings: Blaney heating up with strong Penske track up next
By Pat DeCola | Published: July 13, 2021 21
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NASCAR.com's Pat DeCola ranks the top 20 Cup Series drivers after the race at Atlanta Motor Speedway and before the race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
20. Ross Chastain (-2)
Season-high: 18th
Season-low: Out
Comment: On one hand, Chastain has four top-seven finishes in the past eight races. On the other, he has three finishes outside the top 20 in the past four races. He somewhat surprisingly only has two Loudon starts, and he both started 32nd and finished 25th in each of them. Wicked strange.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
19. Bubba Wallace (Not ranked last week)
Season-high: 18th
Season-low: Out
Comment: With his top five at Pocono being the high point, Wallace has very much looked like a top-15 driver/car combination since a P39 at Austin. He's even averaged a literal 15.0 in the seven races since. One thing he's never gotten is a top 15 at New Hampshire, where he has finishes of 24th, 22nd and 23rd in his three starts.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
18. Michael McDowell (-1)
Season-high: 10th
Season-low: Out
Comment: For a driver that could certainly use some momentum building heading into the playoffs, McDowell isn't quite putting much together with no top 10s since Austin and just three finishes in the top 20 since then. He finished in the top 20 at Loudon in each of the last two races there, but those were his first in the top half of the field in 18 total starts.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
17. Matt DiBenedetto (+2)
Season-high: 14th
Season-low: Out
Comment: DiBenedetto's numbers this year align much closer to his season behind the wheel of the No. 95 -- not exactly the results a Penske-aligned organization is looking for -- but for now, let's focus on the positives. He's finished in the top 10 for two races in a row for the first time since Talladega/Kansas and finished in the top six in each of the last two Loudon races. A postseason push late in the regular season might be forming here.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
16 Chris Buescher (--)
Season-high: 13th
Season-low: Out
Comment: Buescher hasn't raced poorly the past month, but he's not getting the finishes -- and really, the points -- that he's going to need to stay afloat in the postseason picture if he doesn't win. Loudon isn't likely to offer a lucrative day for him, either, with just one top 15 and an average finish of 23.6 in seven starts.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
15. Christopher Bell (--)
Season-high: 8th
Season-low: 16th
Comment: Bell followed up his Road America runner-up with a top 10 at Atlanta for his best back-to-back races since Martinsville/Richmond in April. In his one Cup start at New Hampshire he finished 28th, but he has won both of his Xfinity starts there.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
14. Austin Dillon (-1)
Season-high: 11th
Season-low: 16th
Comment: Dillon has finished in the 11-14 range in seven of the past nine races, with the other two being a sixth-place run at Charlotte and 21st in the Pocono opener. Loudon's been a little rough on him, with just one top 10 in 11 starts, though his average finish (16.7) isn't disastrous.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
13. Tyler Reddick (-1)
Season-high: 12th
Season-low: Out
Comment: Reddick has averaged an 8.5 finish over the past four races, but has remained 13th in the standings since coming out of Charlotte. Loudon is definitely his kind of track, and it showed in his only Cup start there last year when he finished 10th as a rookie.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
12. Kevin Harvick (-2)
Season-high: 1st
Season-low: 12th
Comment: After three races of building some momentum in the top 10, Harvick has now finished outside the top 10 in consecutive races for the first time all season, the back half of which was at one of his best tracks. He'll have a shot at one of his other best tracks this weekend at Loudon, where he's won three of the past six races with just one finish outside the top five since 2015.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
11. Kurt Busch (+3)
Season-high: 6th
Season-low: Out
Comment: Sure, he's averaging a 17.4 finish, his worst since 2014. Sure, he might have no idea what 2022 holds for him. But Sunday showed above all else there's no question he's still got it, and he's headed to the playoffs. With three Loudon wins he very well could make it two in a row, though all of them came in 2008 or earlier.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
10. Brad Keselowski (-1)
Season-high: 2nd
Season-low: 12th
Comment: Keselowski had his two worst races at Atlanta this year since 2014, with that span seeing two wins and a runner-up before this year's 19.0 average finish. He's been one of the stronger drivers at New Hampshire the past decade and enters the race as the defending winner.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
9. Ryan Blaney (+2)
Season-high: 5th
Season-low: 15th
Comment: While he hasn't made a ton of noise since his Atlanta win earlier this season, that's now three top-six finishes in the past four races for a driver clearly starting to heat up. The Penske cars tend to be strong at New Hampshire, and it's reflected in his three races there with the team (two top-seven finishes).
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
8. Joey Logano (-1)
Season-high: 2nd
Season-low: 8th
Comment: There were points in the season where Logano looked primed to be a Championship 4 contender and while I'm certainly not declaring he isn't, the 2018 champ is starting to trend in the wrong direction. A trip home never hurts, and the New England native always loves racing at the "Magic Mile," where he has a pair of victories and eight top-11 finishes in the past 10 races.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
7. Martin Truex Jr. (+1)
Season-high: 2nd
Season-low: 10th
Comment: Truex has bettered his finish in every race since a 22nd-place run at Nashville, with a third-place finish at Atlanta as the latest momentum-builder. With six straight top-seven finishes there, a Loudon win is just a matter of time for him and it could easily be this weekend.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
6. William Byron (-1)
Season-high: 3rd
Season-low: 18th
Comment: In perhaps a bit of regression to the mean after his 11-race top-10 streak, Byron has now finished outside the top 10 in three straight and four of the last six races. He has yet to finish in the top 10 at Loudon, but was 11th there last year and has never finished worse than 14th.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
5. Alex Bowman (-1)
Season-high: 5th
Season-low: 17th
Comment: Bowman continues to be a presence in races and appears primed for a deep playoff run, with two wins and a 7.88 finish over the past nine races. It'll be interesting to see if he can keep it up this weekend at Loudon, where he's yet to finish in the top 10 through nine races.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
4. Denny Hamlin (--)
Season-high: 1st
Season-low: 6th
Comment: Hamlin is yo-yoing a bit, having alternated finishes inside and outside the top 10 the last six races. Barring an incident, you might as well pencil in another top 10 at Loudon -- and perhaps his first win -- this weekend, as he has a victory and two runner-ups there in the past five races.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
3. Chase Elliott (--)
Season-high: 1st
Season-low: 10th
Comment: Elliott was unable to capitalize on his Road America momentum and win at his home race track this past Sunday, but he's still rolling. Though he has only two top 10s in seven Loudon starts, he's finished in the top 11 in four of the last five New Hampshire races.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
2. Kyle Busch (--)
Season-high: 2nd
Season-low: 14th
Comment: It's starting to become clear that the two best drivers this year share a first name, and we likely have a lot of great battles to watch ahead of us, as Rowdy now has a Larson-like four straight top-three finishes. He's been quite good at Loudon in his career (three wins, 1,128 laps led) and it could come down to them this weekend.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
1. Kyle Larson (--)
Season-high: 1st
Season-low: 14th
Comment: Meanwhile, Larson is putting together very un-Larson like results the past two weekends, with his first non-top-10s since Kansas. He's finished second at Loudon three times in 10 starts, and there's perhaps a better chance than not that he finishes a position higher on Sunday.