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Power Rankings: Christopher Bell about to start making some noise?
By Pat DeCola | Published: 22 Jun, 2021 21
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NASCAR.com's Pat DeCola ranks the top 20 NASCAR Cup Series drivers after NASCAR's return to Nashville Superspeedway and before a doubleheader at Pocono Raceway.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
20. Matt DiBenedetto (-2)
Season-high: 14th
Season-low: Out
Comment: DiBenedetto can't seem to turn things around at the moment and is at risk of falling out of these rankings completely after a sixth straight finish of 18th or worse. He placed sixth in the most recent Pocono race, but that stands as his only top 10 in 12 tries at the "Tricky Triangle."
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
19. Chris Buescher (-4)
Season-high: 13th
Season-low: Out
Comment: A crash at Nashville left Buescher with his worst finish of the season, but perhaps at a rather fortuitous time. The Roush Fenway Racing driver's lone Cup win came at Pocono, and he has two shots to get back on the horse this weekend.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
18. Ross Chastain (+1)
Season-high: 18th
Season-low: Out
Comment: Chastain is quickly putting together a nice season, and his steadily improving 17.4 average finish is a good deal better than that of his 2004 champion teammate (19.6) despite him also finding his form lately. In four Pocono starts, however, Chastain has yet to finish better than 24th.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
17. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (+3)
Season-high: 12th
Season-low: Out
Comment: Few drivers needed a good race weekend more than Stenhouse, who came into Nashville with a 25.43 average finish in his previous seven races before finishing sixth. It could be short-lived, though, with no top 10s in 16 career Pocono starts.
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16. Kurt Busch (+1)
Season-high: 6th
Season-low: Out
Comment: After a significant midseason swoon, Busch has now put together back-to-back top eights as the series now heads to one of his best tracks for a doubleheader. Though he has just three top 10s since a 2016 win, the '04 champ has visited Pocono Victory Lane thrice.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
15. Tyler Reddick (-2)
Season-high: 13th
Season-low: Out
Comment: Reddick has stalled out a little the past two weeks with finishes just inside the top 20, but he still remains inside the playoff field for now. Pocono was truly dreadful for him last year (30th, 35th), so he certainly has had this weekend circled with an eye on redemption.
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14. Michael McDowell (--)
Season-high: 10th
Season-low: Out
Comment: Top-15 finishes are decent results for McDowell these days, and a 16th-place run at Nashville is close enough to count — however, it's now his 12th race in the last 14 he has been shut out of the top 10. Pocono offers a good opportunity to put an end to that, as he finished eighth in the "Tricky Triangle" opener last year.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
13. Christopher Bell (+3)
Season-high: 8th
Season-low: 16th
Comment: Bell's stretch from Talladega to Sonoma might be the worst seven-race split of any 2021 winner, but it might all be about to turn around. Obviously he has JGR power behind him which always helps, but a top 10 at Nashville was his first since two straight at Martinsville and Richmond, and the first top five of his career came at Pocono last year in a less competitive ride. Win No. 2 is not out of the equation this weekend.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
12. Ryan Blaney (-4)
Season-high: 5th
Season-low: 15th
Comment: At times this season it looked like Blaney's big breakout was finally upon us, but here we are about to hit the halfway point and he's compiling his worst average finish (14.5) since 2018 (14.8). If there's any consolation, though, it's he now gets two shots at one of his best tracks to turn things around.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
11. Austin Dillon (+1)
Season-high: 11th
Season-low: 16th
Comment: Meanwhile, Dillon is putting together what's shaping up to be the best season of his career by a mile with a career-best average finish (12.9) that's better than a pair of former champs and 2021 winners in Martin Truex Jr. (13.4) and Brad Keselowski (14.0). This weekend presents a solid challenge for him, with no top 10s in 14 career starts at Pocono.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
10. Brad Keselowski (-1)
Season-high: 2nd
Season-low: 12th
Comment: Six straight finishes outside the top 10 is about as un-Keselowski-like as it gets, and it's hard not to start to see the writing on the wall here as the end of the 2012 champ's Penske contract nears. That said, the longstanding relationship likely still has some magic left in it and Pocono stands as a good track to rekindle things with a favorable 11.0 average finish and the site of one of his landmark wins in 2011.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
9. Alex Bowman (+1)
Season-high: 8th
Season-low: 17th
Comment: Despite it being the Ally 400, Sunday just wasn't Bowman's day and a 14th-place run ended a four-race top-10 streak. He has a couple of solid runs at Pocono the past few years (third, 2018; ninth, 2020) despite a rough 21.4 average finish there.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
8. Kevin Harvick (+3)
Season-high: 1st
Season-low: 11th
Comment: It feels like something has shifted in a positive direction at SHR, and Harvick's likely to be the primary beneficiary as the team's best title hope. With a win and a runner-up in last year's Pocono doubleheader, this stands as good a chance as any he'll be locked into the playoffs come Monday.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
7. Kyle Busch (--)
Season-high: 6th
Season-low: 14th
Comment: Busch has now led in four straight races for the first time this season, and it's starting to feel like his mojo is back and another win could be coming soon. With three Pocono wins from 2017-19, it very well could be this weekend.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
6. Denny Hamlin (-1)
Season-high: 1st
Season-low: 6th
Comment: Despite cooling down considerably mid-season and still having no wins, Hamlin is actually outpacing his seven-win 2020 campaign in top fives, top 10s and average finish. His six wins at Pocono are tops at any track for him, and a seventh this weekend would be wholly unsurprising.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
5. Martin Truex Jr. (-1)
Season-high: 2nd
Season-low: 7th
Comment: Cause for concern for the No. 19 group? After a brief rebound at Sonoma (third), Truex's 22nd-place Nashville finish was his fourth at 19th or worse in the last five races. Pocono has been a strength for him the past half-decade, so perhaps this weekend breaks the spell.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
4. William Byron (+2)
Season-high: 3rd
Season-low: 18th
Comment: A third-place run at a track he'd never seen before ain't too shabby for Byron, who is nearly averaging a finish inside the top 10 now (10.2). He has taken to Pocono quite well in his early career, with four top 10s in six races.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
3. Joey Logano (--)
Season-high: 2nd
Season-low: 8th
Comment: It feels like Logano has yet to fully hit his stride in 2021, but he feels like Ford's best shot at a Championship 4 bid at the moment. Pocono may offer a good barometer for his level of speed as his Penske years there have not gone super well, with just seven top 10s in 16 starts.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
2. Chase Elliott (--)
Season-high: 1st
Season-low: 10th
Comment: Elliott's DQ saddled him with a 39th-place finish, ending a streak of six straight top sevens. He has had some decent runs at Pocono, but two of his last three starts there resulted in finishes of 25th and 38th.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
1. Kyle Larson (--)
Season-high: 1st
Season-low: 14th
Comment: What else is there to say at this point? Three straight wins, six straight top-two finishes and all the momentum in the world at the moment. A Pocono win has always felt like something that would be on his resume eventually and perhaps by the end of the weekend he'll have two.