NASCAR Power Rankings: Chase Elliott ascends to No. 1 after Darlington

Throwback weekend at Darlington Raceway didn’t disappoint.

An attrition-filled race saw 13 drivers fail to finish Sunday’s Cup race, which means the NBC Sports Power Rankings got a shake-up too.

1. Chase Elliott (Last week: No. 2) There’s a new No. 1. After notching his first win of the season at Dover, Elliott finds himself at the top with a fifth-place finish at Darlington. Elliott, who leads the points standings by 65 points, has five consecutive top-10 finishes and two straight top fives. Darlington started terribly for the No. 9 team after a crash in practice sent them to a backup car, but Elliott charged from the back to turn in a productive day.

2. Ross Chastain (Last week: No. 1) Chastain was on pace for his seventh podium finish of the season, but the two-time Cup winner couldn’t keep his No. 1 Chevrolet under control after a Lap 195 restart while fighting for the lead with Denny Hamlin. That sent Chastain spinning into the inside wall en route to a 30th-place finish. Chastain has three top-three finishes in his last five races, but his two other results in that frame that are DNFs of 30th or worse.

3. Kyle Busch (Last week: No. 4) Busch’s 33rd-place finish at Darlington was the result of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. His No. 18 Toyota had nowhere to go when Brad Keselowski hit the wall off Turn 2 and spun in Busch’s path, breaking the left-front suspension of Busch’s car and ending his day early. It snapped a five-race streak of top-10 finishes for Busch, but not before he led 19 laps and appeared to be a contender for the win.

4. Ryan Blaney (Last week: No. 3) Blaney’s hot start has cooled considerably over the past three weeks. Blaney has failed to finish inside the top 10 in each of the last