NASCAR Power Rankings: Taking a look at the Truck and Xfinity contenders
With the Cup Series taking the Father’s Day weekend off, let’s go through the drivers in NASCAR’s lower two series.
1. Tyler Reddick (Xfinity Series, 3 wins)
If you thought Reddick’s 2018 Xfinity Series title was a fluke then you’re being proven wrong in 2019. Reddick moved from JR Motorsports to Richard Childress Racing in the offseason and has gotten even better. He has three wins, 11 top-five finishes and 12 top 10s through the first 14 races of the season. He’d be leading the series in wins too had he not overdrove the final corner at Pocono and allowed Cole Custer to pass him for the win.
2. Christopher Bell (Xfinity, 4)
Bell got his fourth win of the season on Sunday in Iowa. He’d also be leading the points standings if he hadn’t finished 30th or worse in two races this season. Bell has led laps in every single Xfinity race so far and has led double-digit laps in 10 of them. The Cup Series trajectory continues but the question still remains. Who will Bell drive for in Cup in 2020?
3. Cole Custer (Xfinity, 3)
Custer has wins at Auto Club, Richmond and Pocono this season. He’s also crashed out at Texas and Talladega and run outside the top 20 at Charlotte. But he’s clearly shown himself to be worthy of title contender discussion with Bell and Reddick so far this season and the only seeming suspense regarding the championship picture is which driver joins them to race for the title at Homestead.
4. Ross Chastain (Trucks, 1)
Chastain’s win doesn’t officially count for the Truck Series standings, meaning seven of the 10 Truck Series races so far this season have been won by non-Truck drivers.
And, as you likely know, his win on Sunday was taken away after his truck was too low post-race. The team is appealing the penalty and, if it’s successful, Chastain will be a near-guarantee to make the Truck Series playoffs. The disqualification at Iowa was Chastain’s first finish outside the top 10 all season.
5. Grant Enfinger (Truck Series, 0)
Enfinger is leading the points standings because he hasn’t finished any lower than 11th this season. Sunday’s race at Iowa was the first time since March that Enfinger hadn’t led any laps, either. He finished fourth for the second-straight week.
6. Matt Crafton (Trucks, 0)
Crafton has scored 41 or more points in each of the last four races and has climbed from sixth to second in the points standings. Since finishing 14th at Atlanta in the second race of the season he’s finished no lower than eighth and has five top-10 finishes over the last eight races.
7. Chase Briscoe (Xfinity, 0)
Briscoe is sixth in the points standings but has the second-best average finish of anyone in the Xfinity Series. A lack of stage points is causing that. Briscoe has finished seventh in each of the last two races but has just 30 points from each race. Compare that to Charlotte, where he got his worst finish of the season in 19th, a race where he had 34 points.
8. Austin Cindric (Xfinity, 0)
Cindric has started performing up to the level of his equipment. A win — especially at a road course — this summer doesn’t seem out of the question. His 11th at Michigan earlier this month broke a string of six-straight top-10 finishes and he was 10th at Iowa on Sunday.
9. Justin Allgaier (Xfinity, 0)
Allgaier has been left in the dust by Reddick, Custer and Bell. As they’ve won 10 of the 14 races this season, Allgaier has just eight top 10s. Seven of those have been top fives, so Allgaier does have some speed. He just doesn’t have the speed that he showed a year ago. Yet.
10. Brett Moffitt (Trucks, 1)
Moffitt’s the man that benefitted from Chastain’s disqualification and, in the process, might have become the first NASCAR winner to not lead a lap. The defending Truck Series champion is now locked into the playoffs and should be a contender to race for the title again at Homestead.
11. Michael Annett (Xfinity, 1)
Annett’s improvement continues to be very real in 2019. He’s finished in the top 10 in 10 of 14 raeces so far this season. He had a combined 10 top-10 finishes through the 66 races in 2017 and 2018. And his average finish of 9.5 is nearly half of his average finish (18.6) in 2018. You can probably thank new crew chief Travis Mack for a good chunk of that improvement.
12. Stewart Friesen (Trucks, 0)
When is Friesen going to put a full race together and get a win? He’s had one of the fastest trucks throughout the 2019 season but has just six top-10 finishes and his team threw away a win at Kansas in May.
– – – – – –
Nick Bromberg is a writer for Yahoo Sports.
More from Yahoo Sports:
