NASCAR Power Rankings: Martin Truex Jr. keeps winning
Welcome to roval week. The race was bizarre last year. Was that a one-time thing or will it be weird again in 2019?
1. Martin Truex Jr.
NASCAR’s elimination playoffs began in 2014 and Truex is only one of two drivers to win two races in the first round of the playoffs in those six seasons. He won the first and third races of the first round in 2016 and then Kyle Busch won the second and third races of the first round in 2017.
Truex is a major favorite to make the final round of the playoffs thanks to the playoff points he’s earned over the first two races. And, as we noted last week, he’s also preventing his teammates from getting those points. And given that his teammates may be his greatest threat for the championship, that’s a big deal.
What he has to do to make the second round: Nothing
2. Kevin Harvick
Harvick was fifth and sixth in the first two stages and finished seventh after starting second. Those 41 points he earned were enough to clinch a spot in the second round of the playoffs on points.
“I think it allows everybody to really go and the biggest thing is you want to go try and learn what you need to do to run fast there, so this week we’ll go to the simulator and try to transfer that to the race track and see how practice goes and then we’ll see how the weekend goes,” Harvick said. “You definitely still want to go there and get a race win or something that will go forward with you and also learn something for the future.”
What he has to do to make the second round: Nothing
3. Kyle Busch
Here’s another guy who’s clinched a spot in the second round. Busch was clearly the second-best car to Truex on Saturday night. He was second to Truex in the first stage, beat Truex in the second stage and then was second to Truex at the end of the race. Truex ended up earning just five more points than Busch did.
What he has to do to make the second round: Nothing
4. Brad Keselowski
Keselowski got moved up to fourth at the end of Saturday night’s race after Erik Jones was disqualified. Since Jones was part of that 1-2-3-4 finish for Joe Gibbs Racing, Keselowski retains his position as the “best of the rest” outside JGR. The team that’s won 16 of the first 28 races of the season apparently peaking during the playoffs is ... well, we’ll let Keselowski define what it means for the rest of the field.
“It’s definitely not good news,” Keselowski said. “We’ve got work to do. They’re really strong and we’re not where we need to be to be able to beat them heads-up, but we threw everything we had at them. We put down a great qualifying lap, got the first pit stall, had great pit stops and got to the lead, but just didn’t have the raw speed to keep it.”
What he has to do to make the second round: Earn three points. Keselowski is 55 points ahead of 13th in the standings and two points — whether it’s from finishing 34th at the end of the race or finishing ninth in the first stage — will get him to the second round.
5. Denny Hamlin
Hamlin was up front all night like his teammates. He was fourth in the first stage, third in the second stage and then third overall. He’s in really good shape heading into the roval.
“You know, just go there, run a normal race, everything should be fine,” Hamlin said. “We just try to move to the next round and go to work from there. I think we're really close to where we need to be. Every time we come back to a track for the second time, it seems like we run quite a bit better. Tonight, we were just a hair off.”
What he has to do to make the second round: Earn four points.
6. Joey Logano
Logano’s car was way off at the beginning of Saturday night’s race but he fought back to finish 11th.
“It was a rough night,” Logano said. “It was tough. We missed it at the start. I don’t know where, why how yet. It’s pretty confusing. We were decent in practice and on the long run I thought we were pretty good and we go to qualify and we were really tight, and then we start the race and we’re really tight. So many rounds and air-pressure and we hit everything we could hit to try to get the tight out of it. We got better and we went from not being able to stay on the lead lap and getting a couple lucky dogs and then towards the end we got semi-competitive.
What he has to do to make the second round: Earn eight points.
7. Chase Elliott
Elliott earned points in both stages but ended up finishing 13th. Assuming he gets to the second round — a good assumption — he should be a bigger threat there than he has been in the first round.
What he has to do to make the second round: Elliott needs 21 points to ensure he’s advancing to the second round.
8. Ryan Newman
Newman isn’t going away quietly. He got his second top-five finish of the season Saturday night at Richmond with his fifth-place finish. Don’t be surprised when Newman advances to the second round by simply keeping his car in one piece and staying out of trouble at the roval on Sunday.
What he has to do to make the second round: Newman is 14 points ahead of Alex Bowman in 13th. So he needs to keep a gap on Bowman and then on Clint Bowyer and Kurt Busch and hope that Erik Jones doesn’t win.
9. Kyle Larson
Larson finished sixth as one of the playoff drivers to sweep the top eight finishing positions.
“If maybe I could have gotten a better restart there that last time, I could have been a spot or two better,” Larson said. “But, we ran better than I thought I would. At the beginning of the race I was kind of falling back. But, then we made it better each stop. Actually, I had a pretty good car in the long run there at the end. So, I was happy about that.”
What he has to do to make the second round: Larson is 25 points ahead of 13th with four drivers between him and the cutoff line. A mistake-free race should easily get him into the second round.
10. Ryan Blaney
A late pit stop for a loose wheel relegated Blaney to a 17th-place finish.
“Sometimes we were running kind of close to the 15th area and that’s about where we were gonna finish and we had to come back in for a loose wheel there, it was going to be loose that last pit stop, so that kind of stinks to have to start behind everybody like that. By the time you get to the cars you’re racing your tires are wore out and it’s kind of like, ‘Dang it.’ We kind of salvaged a decent run at it here. At least we’re a little bit to the good, so hopefully we can have a solid race next week.”
What he has to do to make the second round: Blaney is just eight points ahead of 13th. But he has the benefit of being the defending champion at the roval — though he would have finished third if Jimmie Johnson didn’t take out Martin Truex Jr. last year.
11. Aric Almirola
Almirola finished 16th.
What he has to do to make the second round: Almirola needs a good roval run — or hope that the guys behind him don’t. He’s just three points ahead of 13th.
12. Erik Jones
Jones became the first driver disqualified from a Cup Series race since Bobby Hillin in 1992 after his car failed post-race inspection. With his three teammates taking the three spots ahead of him in the original finishing order, just how much did the illegal rear toe help Jones’ car?
What he has to do to make the second round: Win at the roval. Jones is the only driver truly in a win-and-in scenario and it’s none of his own making after a transmission issue at Vegas and the DQ at Richmond.
The Lucky Dog: Jimmie Johnson got a top 10 after Jones was disqualified.
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Nick Bromberg is a writer for Yahoo Sports
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