NASCAR Power Rankings: Kyle Busch re-takes the lead after making a splash in Chicago

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With V8 Supercars star Shane van Gisbergen stealing the show by winning his NASCAR Cup Series debut at Chicago, it was somewhat easy to allow how the usual stars of NASCAR did in their first street course race to get overlooked. Kyle Busch, however, made it so that his performance in the Windy City was impossible to ignore.

In the opening laps, Busch would bring out the first caution of the race when he slid off the track in turn six and hit the tire barrier, wedging his car firmly underneath pounds and pounds of rain-soaked rubber. But despite some right front cosmetic damage, Busch's No. 8 Chevrolet was otherwise fine to continue to race just as long as it was able to be fished out from underneath the barrier it was stuck under.

Busch would get towed out from the tire barrier, and he proceeded to recover in exceptional fashion on his way to a fifth-place finish. With Martin Truex Jr.'s race falling apart while Busch found the front late in the going, Rowdy has now once again taken the top spot in the CBS Sports NASCAR Power Rankings.

Here's a look at our updated Power Rankings:

Rank	Driver	Change	Comment
1	Kyle Busch		While Kyle Busch wasn't the only driver to recover from hitting the tire barrier at Chicago, that doesn't make Busch's drive to a fifth place finish any less valid. It's going to be one of those stories people tell one day when Busch is in the NASCAR Hall of Fame.
2	Martin Truex Jr.		Martin Truex Jr. added points with fourth and eighth place finishes in the two stages at Chicago, and he certainly needed them after his race unraveled in the second half. Despite finishing 32nd, Truex maintains a nine point lead in the Cup standings.
3	William Byron		As he tries to hunt down Truex for the regular season championship, Byron remains in a tie for the most wins of any driver this season (three). Another victory would go a long way towards giving Byron the edge for that coveted playoff bonus.
4	Christopher Bell		Part of what bothered Christopher Bell's team about NASCAR shortening Chicago midway through is that they've been burned by races getting shortened before. Bell was running down Aric Almirola for the win at New Hampshire in 2021, but impending darkness led to NASCAR cutting the race and Bell's advance short by eight laps.
5	Kyle Larson		Since Atlanta's reconfiguration in 2022, Kyle Larson has failed to finish both times he's run the track's spring race. He fared better in the July race last year, finishing 13th.
6	Denny Hamlin		Issuing a huge correction/mea culpa after last weekend: Denny Hamlin's pole at Chicago was the 39th of his career, not the 50th. I got his win and pole marks mixed up and that's my mistake and no one else's.
7	Ross Chastain		It's never an easy thing for a farmer to adapt to the big city, and Ross Chastain's weekend in Chicago was proof of that. Chastain never quite got the hang of the Chicago course, qualifying 34th and finishing 22nd.
8	Joey Logano		Joey Logano returns to Atlanta this weekend looking to sweep the season there, a feat which hasn't happened since 2007. The last driver to win both Atlanta races in a season was Jimmie Johnson, who went on to win the Cup championship that year.
9	Chase Elliott		Given that he missed the spring race due to a leg fracture, Atlanta's race fans have been anxious to once again cheer on hometown hero Chase Elliott. The last time Elliott was at his home racetrack, he won last July.
10	AJ Allmendinger		A 17th place finish marked a bit of a step back for A.J. Allmendinger, and also a missed opportunity on a road course. But Allmendinger has also become a great speedway racer, as illustrated by a sixth place finish in the Daytona 500 earlier this year.
11	Chris Buescher		With his eighth top 10 finish of the year at Chicago, Chris Buescher is now just two such finishes away from matching his career high of 10 set just last year. It's shaping up to be a career year for Buescher, who is currently 104 points above the playoff cut line.
12	Tyler Reddick		The only driver who might have been able to stop Shane van Gisbergen on equal footing at Chicago was Tyler Reddick, who led the opening eight laps and had one of the fastest cars in the field. But a driver error entering turn 6 would put Reddick in the tire barrier and relegate him to a 28th place finish.
13	Kevin Harvick		Kevin Harvick was among the skeptics entering Chicago, and he proceeded to crash in qualifying and have a very uneven race on his way to finishing 29th. The outbound Harvick is likely glad he doesn't have to go street course racing again.
14	Daniel Suarez		Interesting factoid from this weekend: Trackhouse Racing is now the only team in NASCAR history to ever win with drivers from three different countries: Ross Chastain (United States), Shane van Gisbergen (New Zealand), and Daniel Suarez (Mexico).
15	Michael McDowell		Michael McDowell had a more than solid rebound from a terrible race in Nashville, running at the front all day long in Chicago before finishing seventh. With three top 10s in the past four races, McDowell is now just 10 points below the playoff cut line.
16	Brad Keselowski		It's a good thing for Brad Keselowski that there's only four months between races at Atlanta, as he has to have been waiting for his opportunity to go back there. The last time we raced in Atlanta, Keselowski came a lap away from breaking his now two-year winless streak.
17	Ty Gibbs		After finishing ninth at Chicago, Ty Gibbs has now made it onto the playoff grid by six points over Daniel Suarez. And with nearly a full year's worth of Cup races under his belt, Gibbs may only continue to ascend as the summer months wear on.
18	Corey LaJoie		Corey LaJoie had a great day in Chicago, running inside the top 15 virtually the entire day and finishing 14th. Even better news came midweek, as it was announced that he and Spire Motorsports now have a new major sponsor in Gainbridge.
19	Justin Haley		It looked for a moment like Independence Day weekend would have more magic in store for Justin Haley, and it honestly would have had it not been for Shane van Gisbergen's interloping. The good news for Haley is he has another major opportunity to win a race at Atlanta given how he excels on drafting tracks.
20	Ryan Blaney		It's a good thing that Ryan Blaney won the Coca-Cola 600, because he's been in freefall in the points standings ever since. After leaving Gateway with the points lead, Blaney has since plummeted all the way down to ninth in the Cup standings.
21	Ryan Preece		Ryan Preece keeps putting together solid finishes, earning another top 15 with a 15th place run at Chicago. If his Stewart-Haas Racing team can build on that, those top 15s may eventually start turning into top 10s.
22	Bubba Wallace		Bubba Wallace has had over two months to think about what went wrong at Talladega, when overaggressive blocking cost him a win on the final lap. This weekend at Atlanta, he gets his first opportunity to potentially put those lessons into practice.
23	Austin Dillon		I'll be damned if Austin Dillon didn't show up in a big race again. Dillon was running second and was all over the back bumper of Justin Haley in the closing laps when he completely missed turn 12 and pounded the wall, ending his chances of a season-changing win.
24	Ricky Stenhouse Jr.		Ricky Stenhouse Jr. has led all three times NASCAR has raced at the new Atlanta, but this spring marked only the first time he had ever finished a race there. Stenhouse will try to do the same again this weekend, and hope it means more than a 17th place finish like it did in the spring.
25	Erik Jones	--	Erik Jones carried the banner for Legacy Motor Club in what was a difficult personal week for co-owner Jimmie Johnson, finishing 16th despite crew chief Dave Elenz losing the appeal of his Gateway penalties. Next up is Atlanta, where Jones has finished fourth and eighth in the past two races.
26	Austin Cindric		After 11 weeks of almost nonstop misery, Chicago finally offered Austin Cindric a change in fortunes. Cindric finished sixth, matching his season-best finish and giving him his first top 10 finish since COTA.
27	Alex Bowman		Even when he fell just under the cut line last week, Alex Bowman still looked like he had a fairly good chance of making the playoffs on points. A spin leading to a blown engine at Chicago severely hampered those hopes, as he's now 26 points below the cut line.
28	Todd Gilliland	--	After finishing 19th at Chicago, Todd Gilliland heads to Atlanta with Georgia Peanuts on board his No. 38 Ford. There's a little synergy there, as the No. 38 was once driven by Unadilla, Ga.'s David Ragan.
29	Chase Briscoe		Chase Briscoe has earned his way back into the Power Rankings after a 20th place run at Chicago that included him earning a stage point, as he finished 10th in stage two. That offers at least a sign of a pulse for the No. 14 team in Richard Boswell's second week as crew chief.
30	Harrison Burton		The major trouble spots at Chicago ended up being turn one and turn six, the former of which ended up ensnaring Harrison Burton. Burton would never really recover from his trip into the tire barrier and finished 30th.