New Hampshire gives us the first movement since the AARN Cup Series Power Rankings returned. With only two regular-season races remaining, some drivers strengthened their case while others are starting to slide at exactly the wrong time.
1. #83 Jordane Whyte — 5th in Points —
Whyte doesn’t get the win this week, but he doesn’t lose the top spot either.
After entering New Hampshire with victories in his previous three points starts, the No. 83 backed that run up with a fourth-place finish. Whyte didn’t dominate the afternoon like he had at Richmond, but another top-five result is exactly what keeps him ahead of the field here.
Three wins followed by a fourth is still the hottest stretch in the Cup Series.
2. #54 Coulter Clark — 4th in Points ↑ 1
Clark is coming.
A third at Richmond was a step back in the right direction. New Hampshire turned that rebound into a victory.
Clark started from the pole, led 25 laps, recorded the fastest lap and finished the entire race without an incident on the way to his eighth win of the season. He now has 16 top-five finishes in 20 starts and has led 825 laps.
The rough stretch that knocked Clark down the rankings suddenly feels a lot farther away. One more performance like this could put serious pressure on Whyte for No. 1.
3. #44 Chris Romano — 3rd in Points ↓ 1
Romano loses a position, but not because he had a bad race.
Quite the opposite.
The No. 44 started eighth and finished third at New Hampshire, bouncing back immediately from a difficult Richmond race. That gives Romano another podium in a season where he’s now collected 13 top-five finishes and 11 podiums.
Clark’s victory is simply enough to jump him this week.
Romano remains one of the most consistently dangerous drivers in the series, and with only 10 points separating him from the championship lead, there’s not much separating the top of these rankings either.
4. #75 Shawn Hughes — 1st in Points ↑ 1
Hughes continues to make consistency look boring — and extremely effective.
Starting 16th at New Hampshire could have easily turned into a bad points afternoon. Instead, Hughes worked his way all the way to fifth and left with the championship lead still intact.
He now has 20 top-10 finishes in 24 starts.
Hughes isn’t showing the outright dominance of Whyte or Clark, but week after week the No. 75 finds a way to get a result. That consistency moves him up another spot.
5. #66 Elijah Maupin — 9th in Points ↓ 1
Maupin falls one position, but there still isn’t much wrong with what he’s doing.
Another seventh-place finish at New Hampshire continues an excellent recent run for the No. 66. Before Loudon, Maupin had finishes of fourth, seventh, third and fourth across his previous four points races.
He’s not winning races, but he’s also rarely giving away big chunks of points.
The drop has more to do with Hughes continuing to perform than Maupin suddenly cooling off.
6. #51 Zackery King — 2nd in Points ↑ 1
Yes, King moves up after finishing 13th.
That’s what makes these Power Rankings different from simply sorting the finishing order.
For most of New Hampshire, the No. 51 looked like the strongest car on the track. King led a race-high 76 laps — more than three times as many as eventual winner Clark — and appeared positioned to take both the race victory and championship lead before a late spin and additional trouble destroyed the finish.
Execution matters, and throwing away a race like that is exactly why King isn’t higher.
But power rankings also measure speed, and there was absolutely no question about King’s speed at New Hampshire.
Between his dominant Indianapolis victory and what he showed before things unraveled at Loudon, the No. 51 remains one of the most dangerous cars in the field.
7. #77 W Casey Gross — 6th in Points ↑ 1
An 11th-place finish doesn’t tell the story of Gross’ afternoon.
The No. 77 led 55 laps at New Hampshire, second only to King, and spent a significant portion of the race battling at the front. Gross ultimately couldn’t convert that speed into the finish it deserved, but the performance was enough to move him up a position.
That’s now another example of Gross showing he can run with the fastest cars.
The question remains the same: when does one of those races finally turn into a win?
8. #37 Chris Winstone — 15th in Points ↓ 2
Eventually, even a driver on a great run is going to have a bad afternoon.
Winstone’s came at New Hampshire.
After entering the weekend with three consecutive top-five finishes, the No. 37 completed only 36 laps before his race ended.
That sends him down two spots, but it isn’t enough to erase what came before it. Winstone still has nine top-five finishes and 10 top 10s in only 13 starts.
One bad race is a stumble.
Another one at Michigan would start looking like a trend.
9. #15 Kameron M Combs — 7th in Points —
Combs stays ninth, although his grip on the position is getting weaker.
Richmond looked like a breakthrough back in the right direction when Combs finished second and led 25 laps. New Hampshire immediately brought the inconsistency back.
The No. 15 completed only 115 laps before disconnecting and finished 17th.
There is still plenty of speed here — two wins, nine top fives and 330 laps led prove that — but Combs continues alternating between races that make him look like a contender and races that leave you wondering what happened.
Right now, that’s keeping him toward the bottom of the Top 10.
10. #24 Gregory Vadnais — 10th in Points — NEW
Vadnais finally breaks through.
After sitting just outside the previous rankings, the No. 24 finished ninth at New Hampshire and now holds the final traditional Chase position with two regular-season races remaining.
The result wasn’t spectacular, but that’s not really why he’s here.
Vadnais has been hanging around the edge of this list for several weeks, including back-to-back eighth-place finishes at Indianapolis and Iowa. Another top-10 run was enough to push him through the door while others around the bottom of the rankings continued to struggle.
Now the challenge becomes staying here.
OUT: #16 Douglas Scalice
Scalice had been hanging onto the No. 10 position, but another difficult afternoon finally knocks him out.
The No. 16 finished 12th at New Hampshire after getting caught up in an accident, accumulated 16 incident points and finished five laps down. That follows an 11th-place result at Richmond and continues a stretch where the strong runs have become increasingly difficult to find.
Scalice remains eighth in points and very much alive in the Chase picture.
But right now, the results aren’t strong enough to keep him inside the Power Rankings.
Just Missed: #16 Douglas Scalice, #9 Joshua Stoudt
Scalice is the obvious first driver waiting to get back in. A strong Michigan race could immediately reverse this decision.
Stoudt is a different case. He made an impressive first impression at New Hampshire, driving from 11th to second and finishing less than a second behind Clark. One race isn’t enough to put him into a season-long Top 10 yet, but another performance anywhere near that level will make him impossible to ignore.
Michigan is next, and for the first time since these rankings returned, the bottom of the Top 10 has officially changed.
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