Chaos took place on the track last weekend at Nashville Superspeedway, but the shake up in the NBC Sports NASCAR Power Rankings wasn’t as extreme.
Christopher Bell remains No. 1, but Chris Buescher moves into the rankings after another top-five result.
The series races Sunday on the streets of Chicago (4:30 p.m. ET on NBC).
This week’s NBC Sports NASCAR Power Rankings
1. Christopher Bell (Last week: No. 1) — He won both stages and led a race-high 131 laps before crashing when he was in traffic. Bell took the blame, saying afterward: “I got bottled up there and just lost my cool to make something happen and I put myself in a bad spot and spun out.” Bell’s mistake is offset by the fact he’s won stages in four of the last six races, now has a series-high 24 playoff points and has led 28.9% of the laps run in the last six races.
2. Kyle Larson (2) — His eighth-place finish gives him six top 10s in his last eight starts. That includes two wins and a runner-up finish.
3. Tyler Reddick (4) — While frustrated that he couldn’t get by Joey Logano to win, Reddick finished third at Nashville. He has five top 10s in the last six starts. Reddick ranked second in average running position at Nashville at 6.1.
4. Chase Elliott (3) — He still hasn’t finished outside the top 20 this season, collecting an 18th-place result despite multiple incidents on the frontstretch.
5. Denny Hamlin (6) — He was set to win twice in overtime but cautions extended the race and he eventually had to give up the lead and pit for fuel. Hamlin went on to finish 12th, but he ended with the best average running position in the race at 4.5.
6. Ryan Blaney (7) — His sixth-place finish gives him three top 10s in the last four races.
7. Chris Buescher (NR) — He’s scored fifth-place finishes in back-to-back races. Buescher has three top-five results in the last four races.
8. Brad Keselowski (5) — He finished 25th after wrecking. He has four top 10s in the last seven races.
9. William Byron (8) — He placed 19th at Nashville. Byron won three of the first eight races this year but has has five top 10s in the 11 races since.
10. Ross Chastain (9) — Chastain was vying for the lead on an overtime restart when contract from Kyle Larson wrecked him. Chastain finished a season-worst 33rd.
Dropped out: Josh Berry