After the inaugural race on Naval Base Coronado on a temporary street and tarmac course, NASCAR heads to its final road-course weekend.
Some Cup drivers will be thankful and others will miss the opportunities these races afford them.
But it’s also a time for those who might not thrive on road courses to show how much they’ve improved, like Bubba Wallace did with a second-place finish at Coronado.
That allowed him to jump up on this list. The race winner, Corey Heim, isn’t running enough to be ranked here.
Here are my power rankings following Coronado and heading into the event this weekend at Sonoma Raceway.
Dropped out: Christopher Bell (Last Week: 7), William Byron (Last Week: 8)
On the verge: Christopher Bell, Chase Briscoe, William Byron, Chase Elliott, Riley Herbst, Carson Hocevar
10.
Don’t look now, but Chastain has back-to-back top-10 finishes with an eighth at Pocono and a seventh at Coronado. It looks like he is finding some speed.
9.
Suárez finished 13th at Coronado. It was his seventh top-15 finish in his last eight races and he is now eighth in the series standings. Nothing flashy but steady.
8.
Jones didn’t have much speed at Coronado and still moved up one spot in the points to 14th, despite a 20th-place finish. He can’t complain too much considering he damaged the car in qualifying as he tried to find some speed.
7.
Not only did Wallace finish second on a road course, he did it coming back from two laps down following a penalty for a wheel coming off the car. He has two top-three finishes in his last three starts.
6.
Buescher has three consecutive top-10 finishes, placing a solid sixth at Coronado. And his future is set, as he has signed a contract extension at RFK Racing.
5.
Gibbs was 15th at the Coronado and remained fifth in the series standings. He needs to have a good Sonoma to start building momentum for the final two months of the regular season.
4.
Blaney earned his fifth consecutive top-10 finish with a ninth at Coronado. He is third in the series standings.
3.
Reddick got out-dueled by teammate Corey Heim over the final laps at Coronado while also doing what he felt was the right thing to do as he gave up a potential pass on Heim because he had gotten into him unintentionally. That contact resulted in a flat and Reddick finished a disappointing 25th.
2.
Larson is known for doing special things but he hasn’t been doing anything particularly special lately. He finished third at Coronado, his third consecutive top-five finish.
1.
Hamlin will take 14th on a road course, as he cut into Reddick’s points lead. He now trails Reddick by just eight points. If Reddick had out-dueled Heim, Reddick would be in this spot. But the margin of error is tiny, especially on road courses.
