Sporting News Power Poll after Richmond

Sporting News Power Poll after Richmond

Sporting News NASCAR Wire Service
(May 2, 2011)

With a dominating victory at Richmond—even though he had to use every drop of fuel in his tank—Kyle Busch rocketed from seventh to first in this week's Sporting News Power Poll. Points leader Carl Edwards dropped a spot to second in the poll, which is a weekly collaboration of Sporting News, SceneDaily.com, Rowdy.com and NASCAR Illustrated.

1. Kyle Busch (last week: 7th) Busch and Denny Hamlin had equal cars at Richmond, but Busch came out on top. Crew chief Dave Rogers also gets a nod for race management.
2. Carl Edwards (1st) Edwards expanded his points lead with a car that couldn't keep up with the Gibbs machines. An opportune two-tire call helped.
3. Jimmie Johnson (2nd) Started 30th, finished eighth. If this were hockey, we’d say Johnson stole one—right after Johnson dropped the gloves and went after AJ Allmendinger.
4. Kevin Harvick (3rd) Given Harvick’s past success at Richmond, a 12th-place finish was disappointing.
5. Clint Bowyer (5th) With five straight top 10s, Bowyer continues to be as consistent as a running faucet. He’s now up to seventh in points.
6. Matt Kenseth (6th) A multicar crash robbed Kenseth of a top-10 finish.
7. Dale Earnhardt Jr. (4th) This time the breaks didn’t go Junior’s way as fuel strategy hurt the 88 at Richmond. Better that than lack of speed, though.
8. Tony Stewart (14th) Anyone else realize this was Stewart’s first top 10 since Las Vegas, the third race of the season when he finished second?
9. Denny Hamlin (17th) Hamlin ran the best race of the season at his home track. Now he heads to Darlington where his worst finish in five starts is 13th.
10. Greg Biffle (9th) The Biff didn’t manage to finish on the lead lap, but he did move up two spots in the standings as he continues to climb out of an early-season hole.
11. Ryan Newman (10th) Newman likely won’t be shopping at Target anytime soon. Might be brushing up on the Spanish expletives, though.
12. AJ Allmendinger (16th) Allmendinger needed a good run after six straight finishes outside the top 10, and he got a season-best seventh at Richmond.
13. Jeff Gordon (8th) Gordon was collected in the big crash and his night ended in 39th, his worst finish at Richmond since 2006.
14. Kasey Kahne (20th) Now we're talking. Kahne led 29 laps on the way to his first top five of the season.
15. Juan Pablo Montoya (15th) Two separate incidents with Newman left Montoya in less than a charitable mood afterward and 29th in the final rundown. Not exactly what he expected after winning the pole.
16. David Ragan (21st) Ragan finished in the top five for the first time since October 2008. It also was his third top 10 in four races. Are we witnessing a resurgence?
17. Kurt Busch (11th) The Captain may wash Busch’s mouth out with soap after Saturday’s tirade.
18. Mark Martin (13th) Martin has finished eighth to 20th in eight of nine races, so it should have been no surprise when he finished 14th Saturday night.
19. Paul Menard (12th) Menard got caught in a wreck and came away the biggest loser of the night, falling four places in the standings to 15th.
20. Jeff Burton (19th) Burton is now up to 20th in Sprint Cup points, but he’ll plateau there unless he starts amassing top 10s.
21. Joey Logano (23rd) Logano got bullied a little bit at Richmond and was told he needs to start paying people back. That could be hard today when he can’t afford to take himself out.
22. Brian Vickers (NR) Vickers earned his third top 10 of the season, which is the most of any driver outside the top 20 in points. He moved up two spots in the standings to 26th.
23. Martin Truex Jr. (18th) Three-wide move to grab the lead was impressive. Wheel issue wasn’t. Guy can’t seem to buy a break.
24. Jamie McMurray (22nd) McMurray started 17th, finished 18th. Another nondescript day.
25. Marcos Ambrose (25th) Ambrose came home 23rd and dropped to 23rd in points. His average finish at Darlington is 29th. Note to Ambrose: Don’t pull a 29-29 this weekend.