2018 NASCAR Pit Road Week 9: Richmond

Weekly Review and Power Rankings

Richmond Raceway

By Richard Tix

Saturday was a fun one. The weather in Minnesota finally heated up that I got to go outside and at least think about (dread) yard work. Cooper got to finally roam the yard without snow up to his belly.  Oh, and it was finally nice enough outside to open the windows inside and get some paint on the new nursery! Last but not least, a pretty entertaining race happened to be on Saturday night.

Richmond was a pretty good race start to finish that about had it all. The first half of the race included long green flag runs with some decent passing throughout the field. The end of the race had a dominate car that had to make it through plenty of restarts to stress even the most casual fan out. A few hot tempered run in's and a mix of cautions (still baffles me FOX didn't show the replay of the No. 17 hitting the wall bringing a caution I wasn't so sure should have been a caution). It basically had a mix of what almost every racing fan wants. I for one really enjoyed the race especially considering some Richmond races as of late have come up a bit short in the entertaining category.

Anyways, lets get right into the Power Rankings this week! Also, NBTW takes a fast look back at Team Power Rankings which hasn't been updated since week 3!

Pit Road Power Rankings: Week 9 (Week 8)

1. Kyle Busch (LW-1)- Yup, no one is touching him at the top right now.He has three straight wins and every finish except the Daytona 500 and Atlanta (7th) has been top 3 or better.
2. Joey Logano (LW-3)- JoLo led 92 laps on Saturday on the way to his fifth top ten in a row. Richmond was one of the first races that Joey looked to have winning speed after winning stage one and two.
3. Kevin Harvick (LW-2)- Harvick is just cruising along after his hot start. He now has four straight top tens after his 35th place finish at Fontana.
4. Clint Bowyer (LW-4)- Bowyer has a win, five playoff points, and is still third in the standings. After winning Martinsville he has three straight top tens.
5. Martin Truex Jr (LW-5)- Truex had a shot at beating Kyle Busch at Richmond, but a poor late pit stop cost him a chance and it also cost him the quality finish he should have had.
6. Kyle Larson (LW-6)- Larson followed up a strong Bristol with a quality Richmond (7th). Maybe he is starting to heat up?
7. Denny Hamlin (LW-9)- Denny had another good car this past weekend and this time didn't screw up late in the pits (him or team). It resulted in a nice 3rd place finish.
8. Brad Keselowski (LW-8)- BK is still 5th in the points, but he really has struggled lately to have a complete race. Saturday night he faded a bit late, but still finished 8th.
9. Jimmie Johnson (LW-NR)- It was nice to see JJ have another strong run on Saturday and it lead to back to back top tens for the No. 48 for the first time in 2018.
10. Ryan Blaney (LW-7)- Crashed at Bristol with a strong car. Caught up in another wreck at Richmond. It's been a rough patch for Blaney, but on the bright side he has still been fast.
11. Kurt Busch (LW-12)- 11th. Basically Kurt Busch has been an 11th place driver all season. Oh, and he finished 11th on Saturday.
12. Daniel Suarez (LW-NR)- Suarez started 26th on Saturday, finished 10th, and overall had a pretty nice race. Last week at Bristol was even better even though he finished one position worse (11th).

Dropped Out: Alex Bowman (LW-10) and Aric Almirola (LW-11)

Just Missed: Chase Elliott, William Byron, and Erik Jones

Team Power Rankings

1. Joe Gibbs Racing (LR-4)- Three straight JGR wins, all coming from Kyle Busch. Erik and Suarez do enough weekly to keep the floor high enough for JGR to be No. 1.
2. Stewart Haas Racing (LR-1)- SHR can easily make a case for No. 1, but my rankings not only are based off stats, but who is hotter at the moment. That title is held by Kyle Busch so JGR got the nod. Still, its impressive what SHR continues to do top to bottom with Harvick, Bowyer, Ku Busch, and Almirola.
3. Team Penske (LR-2)- Zero wins seems odd this far into the season, but JoLo is tied for most top 10's, BK is 5th in points, and Blaney has been fast most of the year.
4. Furniture Row Racing (LR-3)- The finishes have been rough, but the No. 78 is still strong enough to be a top team in NASCAR.
5. Chip Ganassi Racing (LR-6)- Larson has shown speed at more then just short tracks, so Ganassi gets the nod over HMS. That being said, JMac hasn;t shown much so they may start falling if Kyle doesn't keep them afloat.
6. Hendrick Motorsports (LR-8)- HMS is making moves, but its just shy of jumping Kyle Larson right now. JJ and Chase both ran strong at Richmond and Bowman shined at Bristol and Martinsville so things might be turning the corner. Then again, they haven't shown the speed at intermediates yet.
7. Richard Childress Racing (LR-7)- Meh, that's how I feel all around about RCR right now. They're around, but not factoring in a ton.
8. Wood Brothers Racing (LR-5)- Menard has been up and down lately, but does have two 13th place finishes in his last four. They have lost ground since their hot start.
9. Richard Petty Motorsports (LR-10)- Even if it was short lived, it was fun to see the No. 43 up front with Bubba making some aggressive moves at Bristol. Oh, and they had a top ten at Texas as well.
10. Roush Fenway Racing (LR-9)- We just went through the short track stretch where RFR rose up some in 2017, and instead Bayne became a punch line and Ricky only gathered one top 10. Pretty rough considering Ricky typically shines at some of the short tracks.
11. Go Fas Racing (LR-NR)- DiBenedetto has two 16th place finished in his last three races and the other one was a 21st place finish at Bristol.
12. Starcom Racing (LR-NR)- They get this spot solely because they put Landon Cassill in the car and in four races he gave them a top 20 and a 21st place finish while gather more points then Jeffery did in five races.