Cup Series: NASCAR Power Rankings Week 20 Edition

Table of Contents

1 Grant Park 165 Chicago Street Course Recap
- 1.1 No Lack of Drama in this Cup Series Race
2 In-Season Tournament Challenge Bracket Update
3 Power Rankings (Race 20 of 36)

Grant Park 165 Chicago Street Course Recap

Another weekend display of excellence from the road course extraordinaire from down under Shane Van Gisbergen. He remains king of the road course and earns his second Cup Series Victory this season. Winning the xfinity series race (Saturday) to earning pole position in qualifications then outlasting the field in Sundays race to win it all and complete the sweep. These wins were crucial to his climb up the Cup Series points standing.

The Trackhouse racing team as a whole did modestly well all things considered. (Chastain #1, 10th/Suarez #99, 29th) The Cup Series points race towards the playoffs has gotten much tighter leaving very little room for error for those drivers in the thick of it, which should make for very tense racing as the season goes along.

Five drivers closed the gap on points leader William Byron ( #24 Hendrick Motorsports) with another underwhelming finish by playoff cutoff line driver Bubba Wallace (#23 23XI Racing) leaves a number of drivers on his heels in points going into next weekends race eagerly attempting to overtake him in line for the Cup Series playoffs.

No Lack of Drama in this Cup Series Race

Chicago street course had plenty of fireworks between pileups in the early stages, to late race dramatics of drivers risking it to obtain as many stage points as they could collect while trying to win, all the way to confrontations in the post race pits between drivers. Aside from the theatrics of the race the quality of competition on the course was present and made for unusually watchable race on the road course in the Windy City.

Overall Chevy cars had the best finishes on the day having 6 of the top 10 drivers, while the lone Ford of Ryan Preece (#60, RFK Racing) cracking another finish inside the Top 10 as consistent of a driver that has been in the last month of Cup Series racing.

Not a fantastic day for my projected winner of the in season bracket challenge, John Hunter Nemechek (#42, Legacy Motor Club) finished the race in 15th, however still a respectable finish considering where he is in the Cup Series playoff points standings and above the likes of previous race winners Elliott #9, 16th (won Atlanta) and Briscoe #19, 23rd (won Pocono) his teammate of Legacy Motor Club Erik Jones #43 finished well below in 25th.

Finishing order:

1st: Shane Van Gisbergen #88 [40pts] Laps Led – 26, started 1st
2nd: Ty Gibbs #54 [35pts] started 9th
3rd: Tyler Reddick #45 [51pts] started 4th
4th: Denny Hamlin #11 [38pts] started 40th
5th: Kyle Busch #8 [41pts] started 6th
6th: A.J. Allmendinger #16 [31pts] Laps Led – 2, started 16th
7th: Ryan Preece #60 [36pts] started 7th
8th: Alex Bowman #48 [36pts] started 11th
9th: Austin Hill #33 [0pts] started 30th
10th: Ross Chastain #1 [32pts] started 22nd
11th: Joey Logano #22 [26pts] started 12th
12th: Ryan Blaney #12 [35pts] Laps Led – 3, started 17th (Stage 2 Winner)
13th: Kyle Larson #5 [24pts] started 14th
14th: Zane Smith #38 [26pts] started 26th
15th: John Hunter Nemechek #42 [29pts] started 25th
16th: Chase Elliott #9 [25pts] started 39th
17th: Riley Herbst #35 [20pts] started 21st
18th: Chris Buescher #17 [19pts] started 8th
19th: Katherine Legge #78 [18pts] started 33rd
20th: Ty Dillon #10 [17pts] started 36th
21st: Josh Bilicki #66 [0pts] started 31st
22nd: Justin Haley #7 [15pts] started 28th
23rd: Chase Briscoe #19 [30pts] Laps Led – 13, started 5th
24th: Christopher Bell #20 [14pts] started 13th
25th: Erik Jones #43 [14pts] started 34th
26th: Cody Ware #51 [11pts] started 35th
27th: Austin Cindric #2 [10pts] started 27th
28th: Bubba Wallace #23 [15pts] started 37th
29th: Daniel Suàrez #99 [8pts] started 18th
30th: Noah Gragson #4 [8pts] started 24th
31st: Ricky Stenhouse Jr. #47 [6pts] started 32nd
32nd: Michael McDonald #71 [15pts] Laps Led – 31, started 2nd (Stage 1 Winner)
33rd: Cole Custer #41 [4pts] started 23rd
34th: Josh Berry #21 [3pts] started 29th
35th: Carson Hocevar #77 [2pts] started 3rd
36th: Austin Dillon #3 [1pts] started 10th
37th: Brad Keselowski #6 [1pts] started 15th
38th: Todd Gililand #34 [1pts] started 20th
39th: Will Brown #13 [1pts] started 19th
40th: William Byron #24 [1pts] started 38th

In-Season Tournament Challenge Bracket Update

Another round done and all of a sudden the tournament is onto the round of 8, 6 double-digit seeded drivers have moved on to advance to the next round and one of them is the lowest remaining seeded driver Ty Dillon (32 seed) having knocked off the top seeded Denny Hamlin and now this week Brad Keselowski. Alex Bowman and Ty Gibbs both survive to move on, they’re the only remaining single-digit seeded drivers that are still in the field, both of which had top 10 finishes this past weekend in Chicago.

Bowman being the one to spin-out his opponent in the bracket (Wallace) during Sundays race finishing better in the end in order to advance, While other drivers like Johm Hunter Nemechek and Erik Jones finished just well enough to see themselves advance as teammates to matchup in this next round. Gibbs, Reddick, and Preece all three drivers who finished in the Top 10 in Chicago impressed to clear their competitors to the next round of the bracket. Let’s not sleep on either Zane Smith of Front Row Motorsports in that consistently good #38 car who’s is quietly making a dark horse run in this tournament and finishing strong to move on.

Matchups of this Round of 8 are the following; #32 seed Ty Dillon vs. # 8 seed Alex Bowman • I am taking Bowman to advance and put an end to the Cinderella run of Dillon has had up to this point in this bracket.

#12 seed John Hunter Nemechek vs. #20 seed Erik Jones • This matchup is rough for me I’ve become a huge fan of Legacy Motor Club throughout this season though I’m rolling with my bracket winner John Hunter Nemechek to beat out his teammate and continue on this run he’s on to advance to the next round.

#15 seed Ryan Preece vs. #23 seed Tyler Reddick • Here I am going with the steady consistent finishing driver for the greater part of a month and I am choosing Ryan Preece to advance over Reddick who on the upswing just isn’t enough to get passed Preece this weekend.

#6 seed Ty Gibbs vs. #14 seed Zane Smith • For this one I am liking the prospect of an upset of sorts here, So I will select Zane Smith to shock Gibbs who had the runner-up 2nd place finish in Chicago and blow up some more of people’s brackets to move to the next round of the tournament.

Power Rankings (Race 20 of 36)

Finally here is my updated list of my Top 16 drivers currently this season after the results from the Grant Park 165 in Chicago.

1 – Denny Hamlin +1 (Previously 2nd)
2 – Kyle Larson -1 (Previously 1st)
3 – Chase Elliott +1 (Previously 4th)
4 – Ryan Blaney +1 (Previously 5th)
5 – Tyler Reddick +4 (Previously 9th)
6 – Ross Chastain +1 (Previously 7th)
7 – Alex Bowman +1 (Previously 8th)
8 – Christopher Bell
9 – William Byron -6 (Previously 3rd)
10 – Ryan Preece +2 (Previously 12th)
11 – Joey Logano +0 (Previously 11th)
12 – Chris Buescher -2 (Previously 12th)
13 – Shane van Gisbergen
14 – Ty Gibbs
15 – A.J. Allmendinger
16 – Kyle Busch

Gaining Fast: John Hunter Nemechek Zane Smith Erik Jones

Skidding and Sliding: Austin Cindric Carson Hocevar Josh Berry

Driver to Watch, Going into next weekend’s race at Sonoma Raceway on Sunday there’s a driver that’s stringing together some solid finishes thats been catching national attention as of recently and that is Ty Dillon. He’s on the rise driving justifiably fearless, however though I don’t have him advancing In my bracket, he still has momentum behind him and has a strong shot of generating another upset to advance to the next round of the tournament if he puts it all together Sunday to continue his impressive emergence this part of the season.

If you enjoyed this Cup Series: NASCAR Week 20 Power Rankings article, you may enjoy some of our other racing articles. Let us know what you would change about these Cup Series Power Rankings in the comments!

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