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Power Rankings: Time to look at Alex Bowman as a title contender?
By Pat DeCola | Published: June 28, 2021 21
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NASCAR.com's Pat DeCola ranks the top 20 NASCAR Cup Series drivers after a doubleheader at Pocono Raceway and before Road America.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
20. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (-3)
Season-high: 12th
Season-low: Out
Comment: After a brief respite at Nashville, an underwhelming Pocono weekend has Stenhouse seeing single-digit points in two of the past four races. Strong road-course-race showings are rare for the veteran, though he does have a top 10 in the Xfinity Series at this weekend's Wisconsin track.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
19. Daniel Suarez (Not ranked last week)
Season-high: 19th
Season-low: Out
Comment: A pair of top 15s at Pocono have the No. 99 team humming right along and Suarez himself has a better average finish in 2021 with his infant team than he did in 2018 with Joe Gibbs Racing. His last time out at Elkhart Lake resulted in a fourth-place finish in 2016 en route to the Xfinity Series title.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
18. Bubba Wallace (Not ranked last week)
Season-high: 13th
Season-low: Out
Comment: Wallace finally landed his first top 10 of the year — a top five, no less — but he certainly isn't having a bad season, still within striking distance of the playoffs and enjoying a career-high average finish of 19.8. Both of his NXS Road America starts yielded top 10s.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
17. Chris Buescher (+2)
Season-high: 13th
Season-low: Out
Comment: Buescher is enjoying a career-best average finish as well (16.8) and has already more than doubled his previous best in laps led for a season a year ago (33). Occasionally one to show off his stellar road-course skills, Road America wasn't one of those spots for him in two NXS starts, with finishes of 18th and ninth.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
16. Michael McDowell (-2)
Season-high: 10th
Season-low: Out
Comment: If McDowell continues to race cleanly and hang around the top 15/top 20, he's going to run into a decent handful of top 10s by nature of chance, especially at the remaining road courses. He continues to take advantage of those spots and, guess what — two of his most recent three Road America starts resulted in top twos, including a win.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
15. Christopher Bell (-2)
Season-high: 8th
Season-low: 16th
Comment: Pocono's results were very much not the kind of momentum builders Bell was hoping for coming off a top 10 at Nashville, but he could get back in the swing of things this weekend. He's a road-course winner at Daytona earlier this year and won his most recent start at Road America in 2019.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
14. Kurt Busch (+2)
Season-high: 6th
Season-low: Out
Comment: Must be in the genes, because all of a sudden both Busch brothers are on fire. Kurt, himself, scored 40-plus points in three of his last four races, with his most recent before that coming at Daytona. He has one career start at Road America nearly a decade ago (2012), when he finished eighth.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
13. Tyler Reddick (+2)
Season-high: 13th
Season-low: Out
Comment: Reddick averaged a 10th-place finish in the two Pocono races, much more in line with his recent performances after a brief two-race dip. His first race at Road America resulted in a rear gear issue and 34th place, but his more recent one he finished third. We're guessing Sunday's result will be closer to the latter.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
12. Austin Dillon (-1)
Season-high: 11th
Season-low: 16th
Comment: Dillon has arguably only had one "bad" race this season — a 34th-place showing ... on the Daytona Road Course. Not typically his strong suit, Dillon did manage a road-course top 10 the last time he raced at Road America, finishing 10th in 2013.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
11. Ryan Blaney (+1)
Season-high: 5th
Season-low: 15th
Comment: Blaney's excellent showing at Pocono resulted in his first back-to-back top 10s since a win at Atlanta and P8 at Bristol. He might be a driver to watch for a sneaky win this weekend — he was runner-up in his only Road America start in 2015.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
10. Martin Truex Jr. (-5)
Season-high: 2nd
Season-low: 10th
Comment: Truex managed to score a good amount of points at Pocono -- 64 combined — but has been shut out of the top 10 for six of the last seven races. He's one of the top road racers in the sport and should have a good shot to rebound this weekend, though he's never raced at Road America at the national series level.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
9. Brad Keselowski (+1)
Season-high: 2nd
Season-low: 12th
Comment: Keselowski enjoyed a much-needed weekend at the "Tricky Triangle," compiling his first two top 10s since Kansas. He's an underrated road racer, for sure, and his only Road America start in 2010 netted a fourth-place run. Don't sleep on the Penske cars this weekend.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
8. Kevin Harvick (--)
Season-high: 1st
Season-low: 11th
Comment: Harvick has now compiled three straight top 10s to rebuild the momentum that kind of dissipated from the COTA to Sonoma stint, so is now the time he really kicks it into gear? He only has two road-course wins in his career but a strong 13.2 average finish across 45 races. He'll have a shot.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
7. Chase Elliott (-5)
Season-high: 1st
Season-low: 10th
Comment: Elliott has failed to finish in the top 10 in three straight races, which he also did earlier this season in races two through four. He's still the sport's best road racer, however, and has a win and a runner-up on the last two.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
6. Joey Logano (-3)
Season-high: 2nd
Season-low: 8th
Comment: Logano doesn't seem to be getting enough attention for his consistent strength in 2021, having now compiled a William Byron-esque four straight top 10s and six in his last seven. A one-time road-course winner, Logano has top 10s in more than half of his 29 twisty starts.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
5. Alex Bowman (+4)
Season-high: 5th
Season-low: 17th
Comment: One of just three drivers with three or more 2021 wins, is it time to look at Bowman as a serious title contender? Absolutely. His best stretch of the 2020 season was in the second half of last year's postseason and he's clearly coming into his own this year. A road win feels inevitable for him at some point — probably this season — so why not this weekend?
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
4. Denny Hamlin (+2)
Season-high: 1st
Season-low: 6th
Comment: Almost. Sort of like the beginning of the season, Hamlin was in position to win the second race at Pocono ... and didn't. Racing luck always tends to come around and perhaps one of last year's best drivers is getting his jinxes out of the way now. A Road America win would not come as a surprise for the talented road racer, though he's yet to compete there.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
3. William Byron (+1)
Season-high: 3rd
Season-low: 18th
Comment: Byron hasn't slowed down one bit and nearly added his second win of the season this past weekend. He uncharacteristically posted some of his worst finishes of the season in the three road courses, but here's a bold prediction for you: he washes that all away with another top five this weekend.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
2. Kyle Busch (+2)
Season-high: 2nd
Season-low: 14th
Comment: And he's back. Busch's reemergence as a Cup Series elite puts him at his highest ranking since Auto Club 2020 — pre-pandemic break. He looks like the only driver currently capable of taking the Hendrick cars head-on right now, and it could be him versus his fellow first-namer battling for the checkered this weekend.
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Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
1. Kyle Larson (--)
Season-high: 1st
Season-low: 14th
Comment: Larson finished ninth in the race he should have won and second in the race he probably should have finished around 10th this past weekend. Pocono! One thing's for sure: the No. 5 hasn't lost a step, and he's the favorite entering Road America, without question.