Tyler Reddick ends Cup regular season atop NBC Sports NASCAR Power Rankings

Tyler Reddick keeps his spot atop the NBC Sports NASCAR Power Rankings after winning the regular season championship last weekend at Darlington Raceway.

Two new drivers enter this week’s top 10 after the Southern 500.

Now come the playoffs, beginning this weekend at Atlanta Motor Speedway (3 p.m. ET Sunday on USA Network).

NBC Sports NASCAR Power Rankings

1. Tyler Reddick (Last week: No. 1) — He finished 10th at Darlington to win the regular season title by one point on Kyle Larson. Reddick has a series-best 18 top-10 finishes in 26 starts. He has 11 top 10s in the last 13 races. Reddick has scored points in eight of the last 12 stages.

Reddick's gutsy race clinches regular season title

Tyler Reddick edges Kyle Larson by one point to clinch the NASCAR Cup Series regular season championship after battling sickness all race at Darlington.

2. Kyle Larson (2): He led a race-high 263 laps before finishing fourth in the Southern 500. Larson leads the series with 1,089 laps led this year. His 10 stage wins tie him with Christopher Bell for most this season. Larson has a series-best 255 stage points.

3. Christopher Bell (4): He’s one to watch when he finishes. He has six DNFs this year. Bell placed third in the Southern 500. In the last 10 races that he’s been running at the finish, Bell has two wins, two third-place finishes, six top fives and nine top 10s.

Winners, losers after a Southern 500 won by Chase Briscoe

A look at the winners and losers from Sunday night’s Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway.

• Dustin Long,

• Dustin Long,

4. Denny Hamlin (5): His seventh-place finish was his fourth top 10 in the last six races. The two races in that stretch he didn’t score a top 10, he was eliminated by an accident. He has scored points in eight of the last 12 stages. That includes two stage wins.

5. Ryan Blaney (3): Victim of circumstances at Darlington. His race ended after two laps when Martin Truex Jr. crashed into him. Now on to the playoffs for Blaney, who looks to score back-to-back championships.

6. Chase Elliott (6): Finished 11th but wasn’t a factor in the Southern 500. He ranked 19th in average running position in the race. He has finished between ninth and 11th in four of the last six races.

7. William Byron (7): Collected in a crash at Darlington and placed 30th. He ranked seventh in average running position in the race. He has scored points in each of the last six stages.

8. Kyle Busch (NR): Runner-up finish was his third consecutive top-five result, his longest such streak since joining Richard Childress Racing last season.

Busch laments missed chances at Cup playoffs

Kyle Busch reacts to his runner-up finish in the NASCAR Cup Series Cook Out Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway, lamenting it among his missed chances to reach the playoffs.

9. Ty Gibbs (10): Finished 20th after damage when he was collected in a crash, but he advanced to the Cup playoffs for the first time.

10. Chris Buescher (NR): Sixth-place finish wasn’t enough to get into him the playoffs but it was his third top 10 in a row.

Buescher after falling short: 'That's the system'

Chris Buescher will not run for a championship after falling short of the Cup Series playoffs at Darlington, and the RFK Racing driver feels "disbelief" after not being able to "work the system."

Dropped out: Bubba Wallace (8) and Carson Hocevar (9)