We now head into Michigan for the 15th race of the year. In a slightly different format, President Lou takes a look at the Top 10 hottest teams on the Power Gauge rather than the standings.
1st – Bump And Go Racing: Who would’ve thought Bump And Go would be leading the standings this year? Bump And Go was a good top 10 team last year, but wasn’t exactly dominating. James Sisson finished with 6 top 5’s and 14 top 10’s. Currently he has 3 top 5’s and 5 top 10’s. He’s still looking for his first win of the season and 2nd career win. So far this season, he’s only finished below position 20 3 times. A 23rd, 30th, and 33rd place run. All of his other runs have been respectable finishes, some just missing the top 10. Once he starts wining, Bump and Go will look downright scary.
2nd – Suezbele Racing, Inc.: Don’t look now, but Suezbele is coming. She started late last year so never was able to climb very high in the standings, but did manage a win, 6 top 5’s and 7 top 10’s. She hasn’t won yet this year either, but she’s been on a roll lately. She had a miserable month of April where she fell all the way down to 30th place, but come May, this girl has been flying. In 6 weeks she has climbed 18 points in the standings and is looking to break into the top 10 for the first time in her career. She got a top 10 in Pocono last week that put her up 5 spots alone. Good runs in the next couple of races will make her top 10 material.
3rd – Syracuse Alpine Racing: Last year she was a little chatterbox in the forum, this year she has been non-existant. Could be because of her early start, who knows. She struggled mightly in the first 8 races of the season, only managing to get a 12th place finish in that stretch. Like Suezbele Racing, May also righted Kila’s ship. She rang off an 11th, 10th and 7th place finish in a row. Last week in Pocono she had her best finish so far, 6th place. Well she keeps climbing, soon she’ll be ringing off those top 5’s and climbing higher through the standings. Maybe she’ll even start saying a thing or two on the boards now.
4th – Rock Bottom Racing: The last three races have been a real turn-around for Rock Bottom. Throughout most of the year, Rock Bottom wasn’t quite like his namesake, finishing Rock Bottom, more like Halfway Racing. He mostly finished in the 20’s until Charlotte where he finished 11th. The following week he matched his best career finish by coming in 4th place at Dover. He topped that by coming in 2nd place at Dover. Well, there is only one higher spot than that… Rock Bottom will be looking for his first win at Michigan.
5th – Legacy Racing: Doing good in both the Cup and Busch Series, Legacy Racing is in the top 5 in both series standings. Had a nice top 5 finish at Pocono and a 7th place finish at Charlotte. Legacy finished 18th last year but didn’t run all the races. He’s looking good this year and will probably be in the top 10 most of it.
6th – Daniel Jack’s Racing Team: The highest hottest new team this year... Daniel Jack’s has started to put some good runs together as of late. He had a top 5 at Dover, two 12th place finishes and a 14th place finish over the last 5 races. Over the last three weeks, Daniel Jack’s has climbed up 9 spots and is currently in the top 15 after being down in 28th place not too long ago.
7th – Boogity Boogity Boogity: Had a great race at Dover by winning the MBNA Racepoints 400. Two weeks before that she had a 6th place finish at Richmond. BJ is currently up to 6th place in the standings, the highest that she’s been so far. She’s been in and out of the top 10 for most of the season, falling as far as 19th place. A 13th place finish at Pocono knocked her up 2 spots where she hopes to cement herself for awhile.
8th – Top Dawgs: Top Dawgs was on top of the Power Gauge 2 weeks ago, but a dreadful last place finish at Pocono knocked him back quite a bit. 7 spots on the Power Gauge and 4 spots in the standings. However, before Pocono, Ryan was putting some good finishes together. 3rd place at Dover, 4th at Richmond, and a few more top 15 runs. Hopefully Ryan can have a good finish at Michigan and make some of those lost spots up.
9th – Denton Wolves: Three out of the last 5 races has been great for Denton Wolves. A 10th, 7th and a 3rd place finish. However, before that…. Not too good. He finished 41st at Richmond, 39th at Charlotte and a number of bad races earlier in the year. Because of his struggles, he’s down in 32nd spot in the standings. However, if Denton Wolves picks wisely in the next few races like he has in the last couple of ones, he can start to climb up and may even get into the chase. If he has a bad run at Michigan, watch him drop the most spots since his 3rd place finish at Darlington will be taken off the power rankings.
10th – Jerry Jones Racing: The big team Hendrick winner at Pocono. Our 2004 Champion declared “he was back” after his big win. Can JJR live up to his words at Michigan? Well, he won this race last year so this would be the track. After falling out of the top 10 in the standings for the 2nd time this year, JJR is back up to 7th place after Pocono. The first segment in the money pit is coming to an end soon with JJR leading. The pressure is on… can JJR keep it up or will Intimidator Racing somehow pull up with a few good finishes?
