NASCAR Contender Rankings: Time To Start Believing In Joey Logano & Kyle Larson?
Joey Logano could make me (and others) eat their words about whether he could win a championship this year.
From eating words to Ryan Blaney eating some knuckles, it was a wild time at Bristol.
And after three races, it seriously is time to wonder whether Denny Hamlin can recapture his mojo with the three-race intermediate-track swing that starts this weekend at Kansas Speedway.
Here are my contender rankings after three races of the 10-race Chase:
On The Verge (Alphabetical Order):
Chris Buescher (RFK Racing No. 17 Ford, -124 points behind leader): Buescher finished 13th at Bristol with one stage point. Any hope of winning a title is slipping away as he heads to a track where he has only one career top five.
William Byron (Hendrick Motorsports No. 24 Chevrolet, -121): He had another respectable finish with a ninth at Bristol. But considering he is losing points with back-to-back top 10s, that isn’t a good sign. He has two top fives in Next Gen races at Kansas.
Austin Cindric (Team Penske 2 Ford, -116): It was an 11th-place finish at Bristol for Cindric. Much like everyone in this category, that wouldn’t be bad during the regular season but this isn’t good enough when fighting for a title. He has never had a top 10 at Kansas.
Chase Elliott (Hendrick Motorsports No. 9 Chevrolet, -117): It was a rare night for Elliott as he was totally off. He finished 23rd and earned no stage points. He's likely all but eliminated from contention. But wait — he is the defending winner of the fall Kansas race in what was the best finish of the 2025 season.
Ryan Preece (RFK Racing No. 60 Ford, -124): Preece finished 10th with no stage points at Bristol and he's now 14th in the standings. That's not good enough considering that was one of his better tracks. And now he heads to a track where he has one career top 10.
Daniel Suárez (Spire Motorsports No. 7 Chevy, -134): Suarez has hopes to work his way into the top 10 in points (he’s now 32 points out of 10th). And that seems to be the reasonable goal after a 14th at Bristol and with Kansas being a place where he has a best of 10th in the Next Gen era.
Contender Rankings
Hocevar finished third and had a 41-point day at Bristol. But he really shouldn’t be on this list since he has angered too many competitors. The post-race fight showed that much. But the rest of the pack after him has virtually no shot. It also doesn’t help that his best finish at Kansas came in April, but it was a 13th place.
Wallace finished seventh at Bristol. He had a solid day and he lost just two points to the leader. And now there are three tracks in the Toyota wheelhouse coming up. He has back-to-back fifth-place finishes at Kansas, where he won the fall 2022 race at the track. He was in the mix to potentially win the Kansas race a year ago when he tangled with Denny Hamlin at the end of the race as they battled for the lead.
Reddick salvaged an 18th-place finish on what appeared to be an awful day. The only reason he probably feels he has a shot is because he won at Kansas in the spring, so he will need a strong performance next week to get back in the mix. He has two wins at Kansas but has led only 26 laps in his last six Kansas starts.
A broken toe link late in the race ruined a decent day for Briscoe, who finished 27th and lost 28 points to the leader. Briscoe is looking forward to Kansas, where he has finishes of fourth, fourth and third since joining Joe Gibbs Racing. He’ll need a top five to keep any hope for a title.
A fifth-place finish and 47 points after leading 120 laps still probably has Gibbs wondering what could have been after the late battles relegated him to fifth. He did cut nine points off his deficit to the leader and if he keeps doing that, he’d be the champion. That's a big if but it's doable. He’ll need a career day at Kansas, where he has one top five in eight starts.
The crash with Hocevar left Blaney with a 33rd-place finish and obviously irate. He lost 19 points to the leader. And even if that incident had the ability to light a fire underneath him, scratch that — Blaney always has that fire. He’s got a bit of a hill to climb and Kansas isn’t exactly a place where he thrives. He has led just seven laps there in the Next Gen era, although he does have two top fives. He was ninth in the spring.
Logano has won three of the last nine races and his victory Saturday took him from 51 points out of the lead to just 16 points behind. But none of his wins came on intermediate tracks, and that’s where the next three races will be run. He has led just 14 laps at Kansas in the Next Gen era and has finishes of 21st and 20th in his last two starts there.
Bell finished fourth at Bristol but lost eight points to Kyle Larson, the new leader. Larson finished second and earned more stage points. If Bell continues to finish in the top five — and add some stage points — he should be able to battle Hamlin and Larson to the end. Bell traditionally leads laps at Kanas. He has four Kansas poles in Next Gen era and he has led laps in each of the last nine races and has four top-five finishes.
An eighth-place finish at Bristol finally has to have us wondering about Hamlin, who doesn’t have a top-five yet in The Chase (the eighth was his best in the three races). He has now seen his 25-point cushion wiped out, and he is a point behind Larson. The good news? He has led 290 laps in the last two Kansas races. He finished second a year ago after his tangle with Bubba Wallace ended up with a Chase Elliott win and then he was fourth in the spring. He has one win and three second places in Next Gen races at Kansas.
The defending Cup champion took over the points lead with a second-place finish and 12 stage points at Bristol. He has all the momentum even if he doesn’t have the full-season performance, as he has finishes of fifth, first and second in the three Chase races. What about Kansas? It’s one of Larson’s best tracks. He has two wins and three seconds in Next Gen races at the track. He has led at least 60 laps in eight of the last 12 Kansas races.