6 races in and we’ve got 6 different winners. The NASCAR Cup race at COTA lived up to expectations and after a wild finish with A.J. Allmendinger, Alex Bowman, and Ross Chastain we have been blessed with the 3rd first time winner in this young season. Let’s get right to the Playoff Power Ranking chart and see where we need to make an update:
Brief reminder: winners on the left, and the rest of the field is broken up by likelihood of winning a race by the race 26 cutoff. All to see if we can make the uncharted territory of more winners than playoff spots.
Ross Chastain moves from the “Should” column to the 6th winner’s slot and keeps us on pace for maxing out our guaranteed spots.
As it stands Chase Elliott is still the point leader and as such would be guaranteed in. Should that continue we’ll update the chart to notate the playoff spot, but Elliott looks due for a win any race now.
Daniel Suarez had a strong performance at COTA and given his strength and team’s success, has been moved from the “Might” to the “Should.”
Justin Haley started the year as a “Wild” winner option and while it still would be considered pretty darn unique if he gets a win this year, his good runs have bumped him up to the land of the “Mights.”
As it stands, we have 10 winner spots open (9 if Chase Elliott keeps the point lead). If all the “Should” drivers get a win after this week’s adjustments that would put us at the magical 17 winner mark.
We move next into a run of short tracks, including a dirt race so we could see a lot of shakeup to the Rankings as we dig into the meat of the season. It’s anyone’s game and I’m here for it!
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The Slow Restart 