Power Rankings: Week of 10/8 – 10/14

1. Jeff Gordon (1) – The 24 car continued its 2008 dominance with a win at Talladega to move into the front of the points standings. Gordon also became the all-time restrictor plate race winner and is making a seriously healthy and convincing bid for his fifth Cup Championship.

2. Jimmie Johnson (2) – Johnson nearly came out of Alabama with his seventh win of ’08, but was derailed by his Hendrick teammate in the closing laps. The 48 Lowe’s machine still came home second, but Gordon’s victory was enough to send Johnson to second in the standings.

3. Tony Stewart (3) – Tony made several efforts in the last few laps to try and pass the Hendrick motors at the front of the Talladega pack, but just didn’t have enough going through the final turns to get the job done. An attempt to pass Gordon on the last turn of the final lap sent Stewart from the top 3 to an 8th place finish as the no. 20 lost a few more points to Chase leaders Gordon and Johnson.

4. Carl Edwards (6) – The man from Missouri was yet again unable to make up any ground on the Chase leaders and now finds himself sixth in points. Edwards had a mediocre run at Talladega and desperately needs to get something going next week at Lowe’s if he wants to have any real chance of staying in Chase contention.

5. Denny Hamlin (NR) – Hamlin was able to lead the most laps and bring home a solid Top 5 finish in Sunday’s race. This was Hamlin’s first top five in the first four races of the Chase, something the 11 car needed in a bad way.

6. Greg Biffle (7) – The Biff wasn’t overly impressive on Sunday by any means, but his efforts from the past few races leading up to Talladega were strong enough to keep him in the Top 10 Power Rankings this week.

7. Kyle Busch (5) – After getting off to a great start in the Chase with solid finishes at New Hampshire and Dover, Kansas and Talladega have been nothing but heartache for the 5 car as he continues to slip further and further out of championship contention.

8. Dale Earnhardt Jr. (9) – Another great run spoiled by another engine failure. Junior was running in the top ten and looking as though he might have a serious chance of bringing home the checkered flag on Sunday until he was hit with his sixth engine failure of the season. Junior’s been on a roll the past few races leading up to Talladega, so it should be interesting to see how he does without Eury Jr. by his side for the remainder of the season.

9. Matt Kenseth (8) – Matt looked good at various points of the race at Talladega, but the final results were definitely not what the DeWalt team was looking for. He’s now 11th in the standings, more than 300 points behind leader Jeff Gordon, and virtually without any hopes of holding up the Cup trophy at Homestead.

10. Clint Bowyer (4) – I know, I know … Bowyer was fourth in the rankings last week and finished 11th at Talladega, so could he have possibly dropped this low in the Power Rankings, right? It’s all based on a unique points system I’ve created, and despite his consistency over the past three races, he hasn’t really produced any “power” numbers, thus taking quite a few points away from his current Power Rankings total.