NASCAR Barometer: Truex Wins Delayed Dover Race

Rain postponed Sunday's running of the Gander RV 400 at Dover International Speedway, but that didn't stop Martin Truex Jr. from charging from the back of the field to the front to win his second race of the season. The win brought him level with teammate Denny Hamlin in the wins column for 2019 and gives Joe Gibbs Racing their seventh victory of the year. Penske Racing's Joey Logano was the highest-placing driver of the team with Kevin Harvick being the lone Ford driver able to finish in the top five. Toyota and Gibbs still hold the power, but Chevrolet has closed the gap, which sets up an exciting run to the All-Star race later this month.

Just one race remains before the teams return to Charlotte for the All-Star events. Fantasy owners will want to watch closely to see if Ford is simply in a rough patch or if Chevrolet has truly supplanted the manufacturer in the power rankings. Chase Elliott and Kevin Harvick won the two Kansas events last season, and Elliott appears to have momentum on his side this week, but will it be enough to overcome the strength of the Gibbs Toyotas?

UPGRADE

Martin Truex Jr. – A rain postponement and starting at the back of the field couldn't hold Truex back from winning in impressive fashion Monday at Dover. Truex led 132 laps after he worked his way to the front once racing got underway Monday afternoon, outpacing by nearly 10 seconds to the checkered flag. The win also included the first stage win of the season for the driver of the No. 19 machine over runner-up Alex Bowman. The victory shows Truex is finding his stride in his new organization, which should worry the rest of the field. At Kansas he swept victories in both 2017 visits. Joe Gibbs Racing as a whole is getting the job done this season, and Truex has officially joined the party.

Alex Bowman – Just like that, Bowman has back-to-back runner-up finishes. He led 16 laps before losing out to a charging Truex, but Bowman may be starting to show himself capable of being a regular contender. His best finish of the season prior to Talladega was just 11th, yet he now sits 13th in the standings. Bowman has two top-10 finishes from seven Kansas starts, and both came in the three times he has been with Hendrick Motorsports. The team is riding a wave of momentum and looks like the real deal. The only question is whether Bowman can take advantage of that. The past two weeks should be a huge shot of confidence for him.

Chase Elliott – Elliott and Hendrick Motorsports truly seem to have found what they've needed to become consistent contenders each week. Not only did he pull off a surprise win at Talladega two weeks ago, but he was then the dominant driver in Dover this weekend. While he was beaten to the flag by Truex, you cannot deny that qualifying on pole and leading the most laps in Monday's delayed race means he has found his stride. His fifth-place finish on Monday was his third top-five so far this season, and it appears as though many more could be in store. He's the most recent winner at this week's track and should be expected to be quick again.

Joey Logano – Logano leveraged strategy to earn the first stage win Monday, but that same strategy left him mired in traffic later in the proceedings. His two-tire stop meant he had to pit in the stage break, and that forced a restart with him sitting outside of the top 20. He led 16 laps on the afternoon and managed to work his way back inside the top 10 to finish seventh when all the laps had been run. Penske Racing may be starting to lose touch with the Gibbs Toyotas, and the team will have to work to close that gap with just one race remaining before the break for the All-Star race. Like Truex, Logano has two Kansas wins. He also started on pole here last fall and led 100 laps before finishing eighth.

Kyle Larson – Larson has been no stranger to bad luck in 2019. However, monkey may be off his back following Dover. For the first time this season, he successfully translated on-track speed to a top finish; he didn't lead any laps but finished third. He had back-to-back top-five Kansas finishes last year and led 101 laps in the spring race despite starting 22nd. If the bad luck is truly gone, he should be a driver to whom fantasy owners flock this week. Building momentum and confidence with races like Monday's could be more beneficial to him than most others on the grid. It seems like only a matter of time before a win comes his way if the luck truly has changed.

DOWNGRADE

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. – Stenhouse took the hard road out of Monday's delayed race at Dover, bringing out a caution just over 100 laps into the race. He managed to soldier on, but the afternoon was lost after the contact. By the finish, he was 14 laps down to the leaders and was classified as the 33rd-place finisher. He is now 40 points behind the cut line for a spot in the playoffs and only has one top-10 finish this season, which came all the way back in Las Vegas. In 12 career Cup series starts at Kansas, Stenhouse has yet to score a top-10 and carries an average finish of 18.5. He's a driver fantasy owners will definitely want to be wary of this week.

Denny Hamlin – A cut tire sent Hamlin spinning deep into the running at Dover on Monday. The Gibbs driver was running around the top 10 when trouble struck and that left him to pick up the pieces in the remaining laps. There wasn't enough time to mount any serious charge, though. Hamlin's 21st-place finish is his second finish outside of the top 20 in the last two weeks. His previous wins this season mean he is still very comfortable, but he and the team will need to rediscover some momentum so they can continue to keep pace with the series leaders. Hamlin has one win at Kansas and finished fifth after starting sixth there last spring. Fantasy owners will want to monitor his practice and qualifying before choosing him this week.

Ryan Blaney – With Gibbs continuing to put distance between it and the competition, Blaney will be ruing his missed chances. Bad luck and mistakes plagued this team in the early races when Penske seemed to have ahold of the competition, but that gap has closed in recent weeks. Blaney was only able to grab a 15th-place finish at Dover on Monday on a day when only one Ford was able to finish in the top five. The advantage Blaney may have had appears to be gone, and getting that first 2019 win is going to be harder now than it was just a few weeks ago. Blaney started on the front row last spring at Kansas, leading 56 laps before crashing. He finished seventh and led nine laps there in the fall.

Darrell Wallace Jr. – After a promising start to Wallace's partnership with Richard Petty Motorsports, the team is now floundering. Monday's race in Dover was yet another complete miss for Wallace and the team. Their best finish so far this season is a 17th-place run at Martinsville Speedway. That is one of just two top-20 finishes they've been able to achieve so far, which is nothing short of a disaster. Alarm bells must be ringing, and something needs to be done to right the ship. Wallace is 28th in the championship standings, more than 140 points out of the playoff positions. His two Kansas races last season produced an average finish of 24.5, and fantasy owners need to steer clear until something drastic happens in this organization.

BIGGEST SURPRISE

William Byron – Byron scored just his second top-10 finish of the year in Dover on Monday. The Hendrick driver had been a punching bag just a week prior, getting caught in a crash and finishing 21st at Talladega. His only other top-10 this year came at Texas. His next best finish was just 13th, which he earned at Richmond. Like his teammate Alex Bowman, Byron must leverage this uptick in competitiveness from Hendrick and Chevrolet. They appear to have closed the gap to the top runners and may even have an edge on Ford right now. Can Byron strike when the iron is hot? His average Kansas finish is a lowly 35.5, but fantasy owners should expect this week's result to improve that statistic.