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 | Jimmie Johnson | 1 |
| Johnson started the 2006 Chase with four consecutive finishes outside the top 10. In 36 Chase races since, he has just five finishes outside the top 10 while picking up 12 victories. | ||
| 2 | Mark Martin | 2 |
| His seven poles were a career high. His second-place points finish was his best since finishing second in 2002. His five wins and 805 laps led were his most since winning seven and leading 1,730 in 1998. | ||
| 3 | Jeff Gordon | 3 |
| Finished top five in nearly half of this season's races and his 25 tops 10s were tied for third most in 17 years of full-time Cup duty. | ||
| 4 | Denny Hamlin | 4 |
| He and his 11 team struggled with consistency at the start of the season, but once they found their groove, they were as good as anyone. He earned a career-high four victories and 15 of his 20 top 10s were top fives. | ||
| 5 | Kurt Busch | 5 |
| Easily his best season since joining Penske Racing in 2006 with his 21 top 10s matching his career-high set in 2004, when he captured the championship with Roush Racing. His 10 top 10s tied for second-most of his Cup career. | ||
| 6 | Tony Stewart | 6 |
| Sure he exceeded many expectations, but after such a dominating regular season where he was knocking off top fives with ease, the late-season struggles surely left the team somewhat disappointed. | ||
| 7 | Juan Pablo Montoya | 7 |
| When he started the Chase with four consecutive top fives, it looked like he had a chance to shock the world. But then things fell apart, with wrecks leading to three finishes of 35th or worse over the final six races. Overall, though, Montoya made huge strides in his third season, earning the first two poles of his career, seven top fives, 18 top 10s and 0 DNFs. In his first two seasons, he had managed just five top fives and nine top 10s while failing to finish 13 races. | ||
| 8 | Kyle Busch | 8 |
| Though he enjoyed much success with crew chief Steve Addington -- 12 wins together over the past two seasons, including four this year -- there was also much inconsistency, which cost him a spot in the Chase this season. Will new crew chief Dave Rogers be able to keep Busch in check? | ||
| 9 | Clint Bowyer | 9 |
| Though he missed the Chase, finishing 15th in the final standings, his 2009 season wasn't all that much worse than 2007 and 2008 when he finished in the top five overall. A streak of nine consecutive finishes outside the top 10 through April and May proved too much to overcome. Started to make some waves toward the end of the season. | ||
| 10 | Greg Biffle | 11 |
| While it was a down year for Roush Fenway Racing, Biffle still managed to have a relatively successful season by his standards. Though he failed to win for the first time in six years, his 10 top fives and 16 top 10s were third most of his career. His 551 laps led were his most since 2006. | ||
| 11 | Jeff Burton | 14 |
| During the last month of the season, only Johnson and Hamlin were hotter. The problem was the other nine months of the schedule. After a crew chief change to Todd Berrier, Burton ended the season with four consecutive top 10s of which three were top fives and two were runner-up finishes. However, in the season's first 32 events, Burton had managed just two top fives and six top 10s. | ||
| 12 | Matt Kenseth | 12 |
| Two wins and a cloud of dust. Kenseth started the season with his first career Daytona 500 victory and followed up with a win the next weekend in California. It was a nightmare year after that, especially during the second half of the season. Over the final 18 races of the year, Kenseth managed just five top 10s. | ||
| 13 | Ryan Newman | 10 |
| Newman came to Stewart-Hass off of three sub-par seasons at Penske Racing. He enjoyed a slight resurgence, making the Chase for the first time since 2005, but performance dipped a bit during the Chase. He ended the season with just one top 10 over the final eight races. | ||
| 14 | Kasey Kahne | 13 |
| Amidst all the chaos at Richard Petty Motorsports, Kahne still managed to make the Chase and snag two wins, seven top fives and 14 tops 10s. With his contract expiring after the 2010 season, he's ready to start listening to offers. | ||
| 15 | Carl Edwards | 15 |
| Coming off a season in which he notched nine wins, 19 top fives and 27 top 10s, a 0-win, seven-top five and 14-top 10 performance can't be considered anything but highly disappointing. All were career lows. | ||
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