NASCAR Power Rankings: Ryan Blaney No. 1; Joey Logano, Alex Bowman Back In
Having some momentum is good for those looking ahead to the playoffs. Those on the bubble or needing a win to get in — well, they know they need some good fortune in the regular-season finale Saturday at Daytona.
This will be the last power rankings for the 2025 season. Starting next week, we will start playoff rankings, ranking drivers based on their chances of winning the title.
Dropped out: Christopher Bell (Last Week: 7), Ryan Preece (Last Week: 9) On the verge: Christopher Bell, Austin Cindric, Austin Dillon, Ryan Preece, Tyler Reddick, Shane van Gisbergen
10. Chase Elliott (Last Week: 10)
Elliott got collected in an accident on Lap 198, putting him last at Richmond. But he'll stay in these rankings, as the Hendrick driver had a shot to win the regular-season title up until Saturday night.
9. Joey Logano (Last Week: Not Ranked)
Logano had a solid night at Richmond with a fourth-place finish. It was his first top five in the last 11 races, but the Team Penske driver does have three top 10s in the last six.
8. Brad Keselowski (Last Week: 8)
Keselowski had a relatively quiet day at Richmond with a ninth-place finish. It was the RFK Racing driver's eighth top 10 in his last 13 starts.
7. Alex Bowman (Last Week: Not Ranked)
Bowman dropped out of the rankings a week earlier but after nearly winning Richmond, he's back on the list. The Hendrick driver's second-place finish gives him four top 10s (and two top fives) in his last five starts but his playoff status will come down to Daytona.
6. Bubba Wallace (Last Week: 6)
A wheel falling off the Wallace car ruined a potentially great day as he had led 123 laps and finished second in the first stage and first in the second stage. At least the 23XI Racing driver knows he had speed.
5. Denny Hamlin (Last Week: 4)
Hamlin had a rough day on pit road and finished 10th at Richmond. The Joe Gibbs Racing driver had five top fives in his nine previous starts, but this stopped some of the bleeding from a pair of finishes outside the top 20 entering Richmond.
4. Chase Briscoe (Last Week: 3)
Involved in the wreck around the midway point of the race, Briscoe finished 13th at Richmond. The JGR driver had four top fives in the five races leading into Richmond.
3. Kyle Larson (Last Week: 5)
Larson finished sixth at Richmond. And while he might have hoped for more, the Hendrick driver at least had a solid result after a pair of finishes outside the top 25.
2. William Byron (Last Week: 2)
Byron finished 12th at Richmond but clinched the regular-season title. So it was one of the best 12th-place finishes of the Hendrick driver's career.
1. Ryan Blaney (Last Week: 1)
Blaney retained the top spot with a third-place finish at Richmond. It was the fifth consecutive finish of eighth or better for the Team Penske driver.
Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR and INDYCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
13 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Pirates call up Bubba Chandler, baseball's top pitching prospect
PITTSBRURGH (AP) — Baseball's top pitching prospect is getting called up to the majors. The Pittsburgh Pirates have decided to promote 22-year-old right hander Bubba Chandler ahead of their game Friday against the Colorado Rockies, a person familiar with the decision told The Associated Press on Wednesday. The person spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because the roster move was not yet official. Chandler will join a staff that already includes 2024 NL Rookie of the Year Paul Skenes. The Pirates are shuffling their pitching rotation after sending veteran left-hander Andrew Heaney to the bullpen last weekend. Chandler got off to a hot start in Triple-A this year but has stumbled lately and is currently 5-6 with a 4.05 ERA this year for Indianapolis. ___ AP MLB:
Yahoo
13 minutes ago
- Yahoo
NBA summer predictions: Projecting the West's best teams and LeBron James' future with the Lakers
With the NBA's new schedule out, and training camps just weeks away, it's time to look ahead to the 2025-26 season. What does the future hold for the Western Conference? Our writers take an early stab at predicting how the standings will play out. (Check out our East predictions, too.) Which West team will make the biggest leap in the standings? Dan Devine: The Spurs, but almost by default. The second through eighth seeds in the West were separated by four wins last season, with 48 Ws representing the low end. Nos. 9 through 12 were separated by four wins, too. That kind of congestion makes it tough to envision most of the teams in the conference taking too huge a jump, so give me San Antonio — 34 wins with Victor Wembanyama missing 36 games and De'Aaron Fox playing just 578 in silver and black — to climb the standings with better health, better depth and another year of seasoning. [Join or create a Yahoo Fantasy Football league for the 2025 NFL season] Ben Rohrbach: The Spurs. Assuming Wembanyama remains healthy, he will be the best defensive player in the league, and on offense he will be set up by a trio of guards — Fox, Dylan Harper and Stephon Castle — who are explosive in their own right. They have added some veteran depth around Wembanyama, and they still have much of their existing core, including Devin Vassell. It is a team primed to make a leap from outside the play-in tournament into the hunt for a guaranteed playoff seed. Vincent Goodwill: The easy answer is the Spurs, almost because everyone else in the West is bunched together. We are assuming a full season of Victor Wembanyama and, if that happens, one season closer to him being fully actualized. More playmakers around him to make the game easier and one can expect his first of many DPOYs. Going from 34 wins to at least 43-44 isn't unreasonable. Tom Haberstroh: The Spurs. It's hard to pick any of the West teams that made the playoffs last season since almost all of them were basically 50-win outfits. Of the teams that were in the bottom half, the Spurs have the highest upside with Fox and Wembanyama healthy. I think the public is underestimating the potential for Wemby to establish himself as the NBA's best player by the end of the season. Which West team will make the biggest drop in the standings? Haberstroh: The Lakers. From a standings standpoint, I don't see how the Lakers stay at a No. 3 seed again. I'm a believer in Skinny Luka, but if LeBron James is at all checked out, there's not nearly enough depth on this roster to sustain a level required to having first-round homecourt advantage. I fear the talent drop-off after Luka Dončić, James and Austin Reaves will doom them this season. Devine: This sucks, but … the Kings. I'm just bracing for the worst in Sacramento, where Fox is gone, Zach LaVine and DeMar DeRozan are hosting a revival of the wildly-underwhelming-in-the-worse-conference Bulls, Domantas Sabonis exited the season hoping for a point guard, and Scott Perry responded with Dennis Schröder and (maybe?) Russell Westbrook. Maybe Doug Christie's got the goods to turn all of this into a team that doesn't find itself drowning well below .500 in the West. But maybe, before too long, last season's 40-42 mark feels like the start of another disastrously steep descent. Rohrbach: The Lakers. Listen: LeBron James will turn 41 years old this season, and he does not seem happy about his current status within the organization, or at least that is what his last public statement suggested. That has a chance to disrupt the team's chemistry throughout the season. Even if it does not, the Lakers face real defensive issues as they try to build lineups around James, Dončić and Reaves. The addition of Deandre Ayton at the center position does little to assuage concern. Goodwill: This is no indictment, but what if it's the Thunder? For the same reasons so many other teams in the West are bunched, what happens if the Thunder slide to an unfathomable 60 wins just from being a champion and taking everyone's best shot? It wouldn't be a mark of decline; remember, the Warriors of Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant went from 67 wins to 58 in a year, just because even dynastic defending is still damned hard. Who will finish with the top six seeds in the West? Goodwill: (1) Thunder, (2) Nuggets, (3) Rockets, (4) Warriors, (5) Timberwolves, (6) Clippers The Thunder are still built to be a regular-season juggernaut with youth and the like. Cameron Johnson over Michael Porter Jr. already looks to be an upgrade, but could we be giving the Nuggets too much assumed love when hardly anyone in today's NBA stays atop or near it for too long? Denver and Houston could flip-flop, as could the Timberwolves and Warriors in the 4-5 spots. A full 'best of the rest of' Stephen Curry, Draymond Green and Jimmy Butler could have them right around 50, but you can't assume health — a big reason why the graybeards in Los Angeles barely escape the play-in. Haberstroh: (1) Thunder, (2) Rockets, (3) Nuggets, (4) Clippers, (5) Warriors, (6) Timberwolves The West is going to be a bloodbath, but I have the most confidence in these teams locking in slots. I'm sincerely hoping we get Lakers-Mavs in a win-or-go-home play-in tournament game. Make it happen, basketball gods. Devine: (1) Thunder, (2) Nuggets, (3) Timberwolves, (4) Rockets, (5) Warriors, (6) Clippers Even if another 68-win campaign seems like a lot to expect, the champs take the top spot until proven otherwise. I loved the Nuggets' offseason, and feel plenty confident betting on Nikola Jokić to get them to 50-plus wins; I'm pricing in a slight adjustment period, though, for Houston after the addition of Kevin Durant, who brings both titanic scoring talent and, seemingly, a fairly particular emotional weather system with him everywhere he goes. Maybe I'm overly bullish on Minnesota, given the loss of Nickeil Alexander-Walker and the big bets that team president Tim Connelly has made on youngsters like Rob Dillingham, Terrence Shannon and Jaylen Clark to back-fill the rotation, but head coach Chris Finch is as good as it gets at maximizing his roster around supernova Anthony Edwards. I think what Golden State found after the Jimmy Butler trade was real, and I think the Clippers' reloaded depth is real … and, evidently, I think they're more real than the Lakers' bet that Deandre Ayton, Marcus Smart and Jake LaRavia will fix a defense that gave up 121.6 points per 100 possessions — a league-worst-caliber mark — when Luka Dončić, LeBron James and Austin Reaves shared the floor. Rohrbach: (1) Thunder, (2) Nuggets, (3) Rockets, (4) Timberwolves, (5) Warriors, (6) Clippers Oklahoma City is a juggernaut. Denver and Houston made moves to firmly position themselves as Nos. 2 and 3 in the West. Minnesota and Anthony Edwards are still lurking. And I trust the veteran stewardship of Golden State and the L.A. Clippers more than I do the defense of the Lakers or the youth of some other challengers, including the Spurs and Grizzlies. However you order them, there are only six slots for twice as many competitors. What's your boldest summer prediction involving the West? Rohrbach: Go big or go home: LeBron James will not be on the Lakers at the end of the season. It made sense for the Lakers to trade James from the moment they traded for Dončić. Paying a 40-year-old max money is a hindrance to building a contender around a 26-year-old perennial MVP candidate. It just is. Who knows how the Lakers find a partner to match salaries for James, but they would be wise to acquire whatever they can for one of the game's all-time greats before he could leave them in 2026 free agency. Goodwill: The Sacramento Kings won't be as bad as everyone thinks. With that roster being logjammed, would a contender or wanna-be contender out East try to get Malik Monk or even DeMar DeRozan to solidify themselves in this Boston-Indiana sabbatical year? And maybe the Kings find themselves in a dogfight with the Lakers for one of the play-in spots. Bold, I know. Haberstroh: LeBron waives his no-trade clause and OK's a trade to the Cavs. He's coming home — again. It won't be easy, but if the Cavs get off to a slow start, Darius Garland's contract could be large enough to grease the wheels in a three- or four-team trade. Devine: Apparently, it's that the Lakers will be in the play-in tournament, Skinny Luka and all. I know. I'm just as surprised as you are!
Yahoo
13 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Why Carvana (CVNA) Stock Is Trading Lower Today
What Happened? Shares of online used car dealer Carvana (NYSE: CVNA) fell 3.8% in the afternoon session after Hertz Global Holdings announced it will begin selling certified used cars on a move that introduces a significant new competitor into the online vehicle market. The move allows shoppers to browse, finance, and purchase Hertz's pre-owned vehicles through the e-commerce giant's platform, Amazon Autos. This development is viewed as a direct challenge to Carvana's online sales model, raising concerns about increased competition in the digital used car market. Investors appear worried that the partnership between Hertz and Amazon could negatively impact Carvana's sales and market share. Furthermore, the new arrangement could lead to fewer of Hertz's used vehicles being sold through the Carvana platform, directly affecting its inventory and sales channels. The stock market overreacts to news, and big price drops can present good opportunities to buy high-quality stocks. Is now the time to buy Carvana? Access our full analysis report here, it's free. What Is The Market Telling Us Carvana's shares are extremely volatile and have had 42 moves greater than 5% over the last year. In that context, today's move indicates the market considers this news meaningful but not something that would fundamentally change its perception of the business. The previous big move we wrote about was about 22 hours ago when the stock dropped 4.3% on the news that investor apprehension intensified ahead of a key policy speech and perplexing inflation signals clouded the economic outlook, leading to a wider market retreat from growth-oriented stocks. The downturn in the market was largely attributed to a significant sell-off in megacap tech and chipmaker shares. Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), and Broadcom all saw notable drops, dragging down the VanEck Semiconductor ETF. Other major tech-related companies like Tesla, Meta Platforms, and Netflix were also under pressure. A key reason for this trend is that much of the recent market gains have been concentrated in the "AI trade," which includes these large technology and semiconductor companies. So this could also mean that some investors are locking in some gains ahead of more definitive feedback from the Fed. Carvana is up 66.3% since the beginning of the year, but at $331.83 per share, it is still trading 15% below its 52-week high of $390.17 from July 2025. Investors who bought $1,000 worth of Carvana's shares 5 years ago would now be looking at an investment worth $1,638. Today's young investors likely haven't read the timeless lessons in Gorilla Game: Picking Winners In High Technology because it was written more than 20 years ago when Microsoft and Apple were first establishing their supremacy. But if we apply the same principles, then enterprise software stocks leveraging their own generative AI capabilities may well be the Gorillas of the future. So, in that spirit, we are excited to present our Special Free Report on a profitable, fast-growing enterprise software stock that is already riding the automation wave and looking to catch the generative AI next.
