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Power Rankings: Joey Logano likely to have a say in title picture
By Pat DeCola | Tuesday, September 14, 2021
NASCAR Digital Media
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NASCAR.com's Pat DeCola ranks the 2021 NASCAR Playoffs drivers after the Round of 16 middle race at Richmond Raceway and before the elimination race at Bristol Motor Speedway.
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16. Michael McDowell (--)
Season-high: 10th
Season-low: Out
Comment: This is likely McDowell's final Power Rankings appearance of the season; with no top 10s since May, it's hard to see him advancing past this weekend. That said, the Daytona 500 winner deserves a lot of credit this year as he and his team squeezed every drop of performance out of his No. 34 that they could and it resulted in the veteran compiling a career-best 20.6 average finish.
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15. William Byron (--)
Season-high: 3rd
Season-low: 18th
Comment: At one point this season Byron looked like a Championship 4 contender with an 11-race top-10 streak early on. When it matters most, though, he has put together a 21.7 average finish over the last 10 races. A victory at Bristol isn't impossible, but also isn't likely — he has just one top 10 (eighth) at the track and has never finished in the top 20 in the night race.
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14. Tyler Reddick (-3)
Season-high: 10th
Season-low: Out
Comment: Similar to Byron, Reddick's results have cooled considerably since a nice summer stretch and it now feels like his playoff days could be numbered, currently on the wrong side of the elimination line. This would all change, of course, with a Bristol win. It could certainly happen, as Reddick was fourth in this first Bristol Night Race last year.
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13. Kurt Busch (-7)
Season-high: 6th
Season-low: Out
Comment: Richmond showed just how quickly fate can intervene in a driver's playoff run, seemingly curtailing Busch's improbable rise to 2021 title contender and leaving him as a potential Round of 16 cut. There is perhaps no better track for Busch to make a last-ditch effort to bolster his positioning at than Bristol, however, as the 2004 champ won this race in 2018 — his sixth victory at the Tennessee track.
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12. Alex Bowman (+1)
Season-high: 5th
Season-low: 17th
Comment: Bowman was unable to go back to back at Richmond, but still turned in his second-best performance since Loudon to stay within striking distance. Bristol tends to be a difficult track for him, with just two top 10s in 10 starts and they both came in 2018.
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11. Aric Almirola (+1)
Season-high: 8th
Season-low: 16th
Comment: Almirola somehow has just three top 10s this season and yet is on pace to make the Round of 12 and is higher in the standings than four other 2021 winners thanks to his top-15 consistency. Bristol could wash all that away, however, as it stands as his worst track with four top 10s in 23 starts and a 24.1 average finish.
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10. Brad Keselowski (-1)
Season-high: 2nd
Season-low: 15th
Comment: Props to the No. 2 team and a soon-departing Keselowski, who continue to scrape finishes together after a rough summer stretch following the 2012 champ's announcement that he was headed to Roush Fenway Racing next year. While Bristol historically isn't a slam-dunk track for him, Keselowski does have three wins there amid a pedestrian 17.3 average finish — including one last year.
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9. Kyle Busch (+1)
Season-high: 2nd
Season-low: 14th
Comment: Joe Gibbs Racing had a banner night at Richmond, but Busch finished the lowest of the four (ninth). Still, he'll take it coming off two dreadful races at Daytona and Darlington, and before perhaps his best track at Bristol (eight wins).
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8. Christopher Bell (+6)
Season-high: 8th
Season-low: 16th
Comment: Bell has been nothing but inconsistent this year, but it's clear the talent and car performance are there at certain times like we saw at Richmond. With JGR clicking on all cylinders, I'd expect a lot more of what we witnessed this weekend the rest of the way from him. He turned in a top 10 in his first Bristol Cup race last year behind the wheel of the No. 95, which is an encouraging reason to think he'll be competitive this weekend.
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7. Kevin Harvick (--)
Season-high: 1st
Season-low: 12th
Comment: Harvick isn't quite back to being a force at the front of the field yet, but he's banging on the door. He has a whopping 20 top 10s at Bristol — with an equally whopping 40 total starts — and enters the race as the defending winner.
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6. Joey Logano (+2)
Season-high: 2nd
Season-low: 11th
Comment: Despite no wins since the last time we were at Bristol (on dirt, in March) it sure feels like Logano is going to have a significant impact on the title race, doesn't it? He tends to be in the mix when it comes to winning at the Tennessee track, as well, and he could start really causing headaches for the championship favorites starting this weekend.
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5. Ryan Blaney (-1)
Season-high: 4th
Season-low: 15th
Comment: Blaney continues to plod along nicely for Team Penske as well, with his sixth top 10 in the last eight races. Bristol's an interesting track for him. No wins and just four top 10s in 11 starts with an average finish of 20.0 — but he's averaged 73.17 laps led per race over the past six races there.
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4. Chase Elliott (+1)
Season-high: 1st
Season-low: 10th
Comment: It's fair to question if the No. 9 team will have a slip-up down the line that'll cost them a shot at advancement, but in the meantime Elliott showed again why he's the defending champ by rebounding for a top five at Richmond. A Bristol win feels inevitable for him at some point, as he's led a significant amount of laps in each of the past five races there.
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3. Martin Truex Jr. (--)
Season-high: 2nd
Season-low: 10th
Comment: Truex has a couple of weak spots on his resume (mainly superspeedways), but he deserves all the credit in the world for consistently capitalizing at the tracks he's best at, as we once again saw at Richmond. Bristol is another rough one for him (three top 10s in 30 starts) but he doesn't have to sweat an ounce over that, with his Round of 12 spot secured.
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2. Denny Hamlin (--)
Season-high: 1st
Season-low: 6th
Comment: The thought of a Championship 4 without Hamlin at the moment feels next to impossible, but we've seen crazier things happen. While his short-track prowess is usually thought to be at Martinsville and Richmond, he does have strong Bristol stats (two wins, 14 top 10s) and won this race just two years ago.
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1. Kyle Larson (--)
Season-high: 1st
Season-low: 14th
Comment: The same can be said about Larson in regard to him being as close to a sure thing for the Championship 4 as you can get, as he continues to be a contender for race wins every weekend. The chances are strong that the two-time Bristol runner-up (both in 2018) picks up his first win at the Last Great Colosseum this weekend.
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