AVONDALE, AZ – MARCH 11: Kevin Harvick, driver of the #4 Jimmy John’s Ford, celebrates with a burnout after winning the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series TicketGuardian 500 at ISM Raceway on March 11, 2018 in Avondale, Arizona. (Photo by Robert Laberge/Getty Images) By AMANDA VINCENT It’s hard to dispute that Kevin Harvick is the hottest thing going in Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series racing right now, heading into Sunday’s Auto Club 400 at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif., the fifth race of the 36-race 2018 Cup Series season. He’s atop the power rankings, heading into Fontana, as winner of the last three races at ISM Raceway near Phoenix, Las Vegas Motor Speedway and Atlanta Motor Speedway. Simple opening prayers. With wins in the last three races, Harvick is 3-1 on the season, so far, meaning he has three wins in four races. And that one race he didn’t win was the wild card, season-opening Daytona 500. Watch NFL NHL NBA MLB Soccer NASCAR NCAA FB Golf Oly Motors NCAA BK NBC Sports Bet Rugby MMA Skating Dog Show Horses Cycling Tennis Auto. PHT Power Rankings: Reality strikes Ducks. The Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series will kick off this week with the 60 th running of the Daytona 500. Each week I will release my Driver Power Rankings. I am a big believer in playing the drivers while they are on a hot streak. Nascar Power Rankings Nascar.comAs a result, Daytona 500 winner Austin Dillon is the only other driver who can claim a 2018 Cup Series win at this point, but Kyle Busch is second in the power rankings, as he’s finished best among the rest, as in second to Harvick, in the two most recent races and the two races, so far, of the West Coast Swing that concludes Sunday in Fontana. Martin Truex Jr. Is third in the latest power rankings, running consistently enough in the first four races of the season to find himself in a points tie with Busch for second in the standings. Hamlin is fourth in our power rankings, also for his consistency through the first four races, despite being sixth in the standings. Hamlin was the only driver to finish in the top-five in both the first two races of the season, and after a 17th-place finish in the third race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Hamlin recovered for a fourth at ISM Raceway last weekend. The first four races have provided three top-fives for Hamlin. Blaney rounds out the top-five of the power rankings, heading into Sunday’s Auto Club Speedway race. After four races, Blaney is in a tie with Joey Logano for for fourth in the points standings. But unlike Logano, Blaney has a playoff point. Blaney also finished three positions ahead of Logano in the most recent race at ISM Raceway — 16th to Logano’s 19th. Follow Auto Racing Daily on Twitter or like Auto Racing Daily on Facebook (). Nascar Power Rankings MichiganWe're not at any clean break in the NASCAR season — no 'quarter of the way,' or even six gone out of 36 — but at this point, more than two months in, we do have something to work with: A true body of work. At this point, teams and drivers have revealed their true colors. We know, for the most part, who is contending this season and who is not. Who is good, and who is not-so-good. And that's all well and fine, but it's not. Fun, you know? So instead of just rehashing who had a good weekend at Bristol (Kyle Busch, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. That's about it!), let's make this a little more interesting. Presenting, the NASCAR Power Rankings. We'll rank the top five teams periodically throughout the season, to see how teams evolve (and when they don't). Chip Ganassi Racing: Could have gone with a few teams here — Richard Childress Racing and Hendrick Motorsports both made a case — but ultimately the fifth spot goes to CGR. It's only a two-man team between Kyle Larson and Jamie McMurray, but Larson more than pulls his weight. He's ninth overall in the points standings by virtue of his three Top 10s, and that's after narrowly missing out on his first win at Bristol. 2017 Nascar Driver RankingsAs for McMurray, it's been a forgettable year for him, but he finished third at Texas. Look for Larson to get back to his winning ways from 2017 soon, especially if Monday's rain-delayed race (where he came in second) was any indication. Orlin Wagner AP File Photo 4. Furniture Row Racing: Martin Truex Jr. Is a one-man wrecking crew for Furniture Row, even if the last two weeks for him haven't been sterling. He's won three poles and a race already this season, plus four other Top 10s. Now, back-to-back races outside the Top 25 is nothing to brag about, but that's more exception than rule with Truex. Even last year, when he won his first Cup Series championship, it took until the middle and end of the season for him to start piling up wins. We'll get there again, make no mistake. Just give the man some time to get to the mile-and-a-half tracks. Joe Gibbs Racing: This is where it gets interesting. The gap between the bottom two and top three teams in this week's rankings are fairly substantial, because while CGR and Furniture Row have been good this season, these three teams have been great. Coming in third place in the rankings is Joe Gibbs Racing, led by the current Cup Series leader, Kyle Busch. He has back-to-back wins, plus three other second-place finishes, in eight races so far. Talk about impressive. But as good as Busch has been, the reason Gibbs isn't higher is because the team depth isn't quite there. Denny Hamlin is eighth in the standings with three Top 5s, but Erik Jones (12th overall) and Daniel Suarez (24th) have just one Top 5 between them. If Hamlin can get back to running like he was at the end of 2017, then Gibbs could end up with two drivers on deep playoff runs. It'll be more of Kyle Busch with the 'S' on his chest. Stewart-Haas Racing: Yes, SHR has more wins than any other team. Yes, they have three drivers in the Top 10 in points (Kevin Harvick is third, Clint Bowyer is fourth, and Kurt Busch is 10th) and a fourth just outside (Aric Almirola in 11th). But here's the thing. That ridiculous run they opened the season on? It's finally leveling out some. Almirola led on the last lap of the Daytona 500, which gave many pundits hope that he would break out this year. Maybe he will. But for now, no Top 5s, three Top 10s? He's good enough to make the playoffs, but not good enough to truly compete. Bowyer has been a surprise in his second season with SHR, but can he keep it up? As for Kurt Busch, he's the definition of a wild card — one week he'll be Top 10-caliber, the next he's riding back in the 20s. Harvick is the only true stud Stewart-Haas has, but his teammates have been giving him some help so far. If they were just a little more consistent. Team Penske: Yes, the team with no wins beats out the team with four of them! Flood my inbox with angry emails, because surely there can't be an explanation for this? Here' the reasoning. No, Penske has no wins this season (unless you're counting the Duels that determine Daytona 500 qualifying). It has the same seven Top 5s as SHR, and fewer than Gibbs' 10. But you know what it does have? Three guys in Ryan Blaney, Joey Logano, and Brad Keselowski who can beat you any week at any track. Blaney has led serious laps (and looked dominant doing it) at both Daytona and Bristol this year, two situations as different as can be. Logano has been the most consistent driver in the Cup Series this season, even surpassing Kyle Busch. And Keselowski, despite being the streakiest of the three, already finished second at Atlanta and fourth at Fontana. If you compare the overall points of Penske's three drivers with the top three from either SHR or Gibbs, Penske comes out ahead. The wins haven't come yet, but everything that leads to winning is there. The victories will come soon enough and if they don't, these power rankings will look a heck of a lot different next time. This week's NASCAR race: Richmond: What you need to know. Race: Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Toyota Owners 400. Distance: 400 laps, or 300 miles. Where: Richmond Raceway, a 0.75-mile, asphalt, D-shaped oval in Henrico County, Virginia. When: 6:30 p.m. Last year's winner: Joey Logano. Also this week: ToyotaCare 250, Xfinity Series, Richmond Raceway, 7 p.m., Friday, FS1. Worth mentioning: This will be Richmond's only regular-season race, as the fall race has been moved to the first round of the playoffs. Who's Hot/Who's Not HOT Kyle Busch: A second consecutive win, this time by cleverly bumping Larson, gives him a stronghold atop the leaderboard. Kyle Larson: A second-place finish isn't what he wants, but he isn't far off his outstanding 2017 pace. NOT Chase Elliott: The young Elliott couldn't have imagined a worse start to his 2018 season, where another wreck at Bristol sunk him to 23rd in the points standings. Brad Keselowski: He won two stages at Bristol this week, but then fell two laps down — it's his second straight finish outside the Top 20. Okay, so maybe we shouldn’t rush the Cup Series stars through what’s already one of the shorter offseasons in all of sports. They’ve just given us months of entertainment, so we can take a three-month breather until the engines fire back up at Daytona. As, it’s hard to look into the crystal ball with enough accuracy to tell who will get hot when it matters most in the NASCAR Playoffs. That’s even more true for 2019, when the new Cup Series rules package will add to the usual unpredictability a new campaign brings with it. Should that stop us from diving in and doing power rankings based on our best educated guesses on who will be the fastest cars next season? Absolutely not. With full acknowledgement that these power ranking are indeed ridiculously early, here are the 10 drivers who figure to be the class of the field when racing graces us with its presence once again.
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