Updated June 2
We have reached the halfway point of the Sprint Cup "regular season" and while Kyle Busch has asserted himself as the driver to beat, intrigue remains throughout much of the standings.
Dover, in fact, showed how quickly a driver (or drivers) can freefall with one bad race.
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| Stewart blames himself '100 percent' for the crash: 'It's my fault for being even anywhere close to Elliott (Sadler).' (AP) |
Despite finishing 35th, just his fourth finish outside the top 10 in 13 races, Dale Earnhardt Jr. was able to retain his third-place spot in the standings.
Most of the others in the wreck weren't as lucky.
Denny Hamlin dropped five spots to ninth after steam-rolling into the carnage and finishing 43rd.
"I came piling in there way late," Hamlin said. "I had the 43 (Bobby Labonte) right on my bumper trying not to get hit from him. When I heard wreck off Turn 2, I immediately was on the brakes. It's just these cars don't stop as well as they had in the past.
"Luckily, I wasn't the last one. It looked like guys even behind me piled in there. It's just part of the race track."
Richard Childress Racing teammates Kevin Harvick and Clint Bowyer also got dinged up. Bowyer's car escaped in relatively good shape but was later done in by a broken shock mount resulting in a 36th-place finish. He fell three spots to eighth in the standings.
Harvick's mangled car spent many laps in the garage. He eventually returned to the track but made up little ground, finishing 38th. He sank from seventh to 10th in the standings.
Stewart, too, fell three spots, from eighth to 11th. He, somewhat sarcastically, blamed himself.
"I take 100 percent responsibility," Stewart said. "It's my fault for being even anywhere close to Elliott. If I'm within a half a lap of him, I expect that to happen.
"Unfortunately, adversity is our motto here at Joe Gibbs Racing."
With 13 more races to go until the Chase field is set, 276 points separate sixth-place Jeff Gordon from 18th-ranked Travis Kvapil, which is a lot of drivers within a tiny window considering only two drivers (Earnhardt and Jeff Burton) can lay claim to being that close to first-place Kyle Busch in the standings.
Kasey Kahne finished 31st after also receiving damage in the early wreck but hung on to the 12th spot in the standings, just a mere eight points ahead of David Ragan and 154 in front of Kvapil.
Power Rankings after Dover:
| 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. | ||
