SPORTINGNEWS POWER POLL

Sporting News Power Poll

By the Sporting News NASCAR Wire Servic(April 5, 2011)

With his second straight win, Kevin Harvick jumped to the top of this week’s Sporting News Power Poll. Harvick followed up his win at Fontana with a victory Sunday at Martinsville and climbed from fourth to first. Kyle Busch, who took over the Sprint Cup Series lead with a third-place finish at Martinsville, dropped one spot to second in the poll, which is a weekly collaboration of Sporting News, SceneDaily.com, Rowdy.com and NASCAR Illustrated.

1. Kevin Harvick (last week: 4th) After a second straight win, maybe we should change his nickname from Happy to Glee.
2. Kyle Busch (1st) Despite a weekend without a win, Busch grabbed the series points lead.
3. Jimmie Johnson (3rd) JJ railed against NASCAR after a speeding penalty on pit road dropped him out of contention and to 11th at the finish. Nice to see some edge from five-t
4. Carl Edwards (2nd) After running 18th at Martinsville, Edwards is elated the Cup series returns to a downforce track.
5. Ryan Newman (5th) Salvaged a 20th-place finish after a broken header pipe followed by a flat tire took him out of contention.
6. Matt Kenseth (8th) If Kenseth and his team can eliminate costly mistakes and slow starts, he will win soon.
7. Jeff Gordon (13th) Gordon has two top fives in 2011, and both came on short, flat tracks. Pencil him in for New Hampshire.
8. Dale Earnhardt Jr. (12th) Little picture: Heartbreaking to hold the lead that late and lose. Big picture: The 88 team continues to make visible progress.
9. Juan Pablo Montoya (9th) Montoya wheeled an OK car to a top-five finish. He’s really growing to like Martinsville, and it’s not because of the hot dogs.
10. Kurt Busch (6th) Dreadful performance at Martinsville takes the shine off Busch’s strong start.11. Clint Bowyer (16th) At a track where drivers questioned the tires, Bowyer found traction, leading 91 laps and finishing ninth for his second straight top 10.
12. Mark Martin (17th) Career Cup start No. 800 ended with a top-10 finish, and you have to wonder if Martin’s got another 100 starts in him. He’s only 52, after all.
13. Tony Stewart (7th) Smoke finished 38 laps down at Martinsville. He hasn’t finished that far off the lead lap since a DNF at Dover in June 2008.
14. Kasey Kahne (10th) A strong run undone by more bad luck. Kahne has looked good but just doesn’t have the finishes.
15. Denny Hamlin (19th) Hamlin led 89 laps, his best so far. But his 12th-place finish was a big disappointment and his worst result at Martinsville since 2
16. Paul Menard (11th) A hole in the radiator dropped Menard six spots in the standings. How he responds may define his sea17. AJ Allmendinger (18th) Looked like a top 10 was in the cards for Allmendinger until that last run.
18. Greg Biffle (14th) Biffle generally struggles to get the feel he wants at Martinsville, and he did again Sunday. The pressure is on at Texas, one of his better tracks.
19. Jamie McMurray (NR) McMurray won the pole, his first of the season, and finished seventh, his first top-10 of 2011. The finish was a bigger deal. He moved up five spots in the standings to 23rd.
20. David Ragan (24th) Ragan was accused by Stewart of being a dart with no feathers racing at Martinsville as a rookie, but his eighth-place run was 26 spots better than Smoke this time around.
21. Martin Truex Jr. (15th) Truex was mired in the back half of the field until a throttle issue sent him careening off of Kahne and hard into the wall.
22. Brian Vickers (20th) A nondescript day for Vickers, who finished 17th and remained 24th in the standings. Not a start to the season he was looking for after his long layoff.
23. David Reutimann (25th) Reutimann’s roller-coaster season continued with a decent run at Martinsville. Does that spell doom for Texas?
24. Joey Logano (NR) A 13th-place finish would normally be considered a so-so day for Logano. But considering he had an averaged finish of 25.4 for the first five races this year, he’ll take it.
25. Jeff Burton (21st) The only worse start to anything is the opening of Charlie Sheen’s comedy tour.