Updated March 31
How strong has Joe Gibbs Racing been through the first six races?
So strong that the lone driver of the JGR trio without a victory actually leads our Power Rankings.
In seasons past, if you'd have said JGR has two victories in the first six races, almost assuredly Tony Stewart would have been responsible for one of them. But with Kyle Busch having moved into the No. 18 ride in place of J.J. Yeley and Denny Hamlin having established himself as a winner in the No. 11, Stewart no longer carries the weight of JGR's success or failure on his shoulders.
Whatever expectations Gibbs had in making the move to Toyota have been met, if not exceeded in the early going.
Busch dominated the season-opening Daytona 500 before ultimately falling short of the victory. In his first four races for Gibbs he nabbed three top fives, including the first Cup victory for Toyota. He's had some hard luck the past couple of races, finishing 17th at Bristol and 38th Sunday at Martinsville.
Hamlin was in the opposite boat. He struggled at the start of the season before hitting stride the past couple of races, leading 98 laps and finishing sixth at Bristol and leading 82 laps and grabbing Toyota's second win at Martinsville. The victory at his home track came as a huge relief to the Virginia native.
"When you get so close to winning so many races and something bad happens or things just don't work out in your favor at the end and you end up losing a win, it's tough to maintain confidence," Hamlin said. "It's tough -- your self-esteem starts going down. It takes its toll on you -- last week was just like how many times do we have to go through this.
"I felt like we had a chance to probably win three in a row, but the first two races just had a lot of problems. A lot of thanks go the guy at TRD (Toyota Racing Development) to help support us at Joe Gibbs Racing to try to get our issues worked out. They don't have to -- those are issues within our race team that we had. For them to kind of take a lead role and say that they would do whatever it took to help us fix the problems -- that goes a long way. And that is what you look for in a manufacturer from those guys. And I couldn't be prouder to be with them."
And then there's Stewart. No doubt after seeing both his teammates win, Stewart is eager to pick up a trophy of his own, but he can take some solace in having the most consistent runs of the bunch. He leads the team with four top 10s, and even when he finished 43rd due to a blown tire at Las Vegas, he was running in the top 10 at the time. With a different bit of pit strategy, it could have been Stewart in Victory Lane at Martinsville.
"I screwed us today," said Stewart. "I pitted and took a gamble when we had 40 laps on tires. I thought everybody would come in, but if they didn't, I thought we might get a run and catch them. It didn't work out. I ended up losing 11 spots, I think, so it was a bad decision on my part."
Power Rankings after Martinsville:
| POWER RANKINGS | ||
| Current | Driver | Previous |
| 1 | Tony Stewart | 1 |
| It's only fitting that he won the race after hogging the lead most of the night. | ||
| 2 | Jeff Gordon | 2 |
| He was having issues with blistering tires before getting tangled up in the big mid-race wreck. | ||
| 3 | Jimmie Johnson | 3 |
| Earns his first top five and just his second top 10 in seven races at Daytona since winning the Daytona 500 in 2006. | ||
| 4 | Kurt Busch | 4 |
| Continues to knock on the door for a win at a restrictor-plate track. He has finished fourth or better in four of his past five trips to Daytona. | ||
| 5 | Carl Edwards | 6 |
| No doubt he was having flashbacks to Talladega. "It was a crazy, crazy finish," Edwards said. "I thought I wanted to be up there racing with those guys, then I saw that [Kyle Busch wrecking] and I was just fine with where I was at." | ||
| 6 | Juan Pablo Montoya | 7 |
| He now has eight top 10s on the season with five coming in the past seven races. | ||
| 7 | Denny Hamlin | 11 |
| He and Stewart were the class of the field. But with Stewart snagging the win, Hamlin had to settle for his third top-five finish in the past four races. | ||
| 8 | Mark Martin | 5 |
| Since picking up his third win of the year back at Michigan, Martin has followed with finishes of 35th, 14th and 38th. | ||
| 9 | Ryan Newman | 8 |
| He has hit a little bump in the road with four consecutive finishes of 17th or worse. | ||
| 10 | Kyle Busch | 10 |
| Wreck in the last lap left him with his fifth finish outside the top 10 in the past six races. | ||
| 11 | Greg Biffle | 9 |
| Never a factor at any point, spending just 14 laps in the top 15 all night. | ||
| 12 | Kasey Kahne | 12 |
| The sensational image of his collision with Kyle Busch notwithstanding, Kahne was able to leave Daytona with a 15th-place finish and move up one spot to 12th in the standings. | ||
| 13 | David Reutimann | 13 |
| After starting at the rear of the field because of an engine change, he had managed to work his way into the top 15 before being collected in the mid-race big one. | ||
| 14 | Matt Kenseth | 14 |
| Gets a much-needed top 10 after four consecutive finishes of 16th or worse had him tumbling down the standings. | ||
| 15 | Clint Bowyer | 15 |
| He had just joined the top 10 when he became a victim of the mid-race carnage. | ||
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