NASCAR Power Rankings: 2014 Week 8

Welcome to the Inside Track's NASCAR Power Rankings. Each week of the Sprint Cup season, the Gazette's Jeremiah Davis will rank the series' top 10 drivers.

Think the list should be different? Tweet him at @jeremiahdavis10, or comment in the comments section.

New this week:

Kyle Larson

Dropped out:

Carl Edwards

RANK

+/-

NAME

WINS

THOUGHTS

1

+9

Kevin Harvick

2

This is a man who has a Daytona 500, All-Star, Coca-Cola 600, Brickyard 400 and now Southern 500 win on his resume – one which looks Hall of Fame worthy at this point. This year could be special.

2

+3

Dale Earnhardt Jr.

1

Through eight races, Dale Jr. has five finishes of third or better. Take out the Texas mistake and tire trouble at California, and this is the best team in the garage. Next up is Richmond, one of his best tracks.

3

-2

Kyle Busch

1

Agonized a bit between him and Jr. for second in these rankings. Busch bounced off the wall repeatedly Saturday night, but still recovered for sixth. Runs like that will keep him in the thick of the title hunt.

4

-1

Jeff Gordon

Restarts, restarts, restarts. For such an accomplished man to have such big trouble in key moments like that is staggering. And at this point, it all has to be in his head, because it's not like he's never done it.

5

+1

Jimmie Johnson

It was weird to hear Jimmie Johnson talk about not knowing what to do up front on TV when asked about the first GWC restart. Despite an odd feeling around this team, I still expect them to go off soon.

6

+1

Matt Kenseth

Another week, another quiet top 10 – making it six in eight races. It would be beautifully ironic if he ran this way all year, didn't win, yet was still in the thick of the title race under the new system.

7

-5

Joey Logano

1

Drops this far mostly because of the performance of others. He was running well until the engine failure that forced the first green-white-checker. Makes one wonder if he had experimental parts under the hood.

8

-4

Brad Keselowski

1

Could be nothing at all, but the exchange between him and Paul Wolfe where he asked Wolfe not to give up on him piqued my interest. The two have worked so well together, it was likely just frustration.

9

--

Tony Stewart

Looked at the finishing order after the race and was shocked to see he finished ninth after running a lap down for a bunch of the race. Being able to do that has always been a staple of what's made him great.

10

N/R

Kyle Larson

Larson gets the last spot in the rankings because he persevered through his first Darlington Cup start to finish eighth. After hitting the wall in practice and multiple times in the race, that's a hell of an effort.

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l Comments: (319) 368-8884; jeremiah.davis@sourcemedia.net