Ridiculously early 2019 NASCAR power rankings: Who’s the favorite for next season?
By Nick Tylwalk
It’s never too early to start thinking about who might be challenging for the NASCAR Cup Series championship in 2019.
The 2018 NASCAR season is in the books. Bring on the 2019 season.
Okay, so maybe we shouldn’t rush the Cup Series stars through what’s already one of the shorter offseasons in all of sports. They’ve just given us months of entertainment, so we can take a three-month breather until the engines fire back up at Daytona.
As Joey Logano just proved, it’s hard to look into the crystal ball with enough accuracy to tell who will get hot when it matters most in the NASCAR Playoffs. That’s even more true for 2019, when the new Cup Series rules package will add to the usual unpredictability a new campaign brings with it.
Should that stop us from diving in and doing power rankings based on our best educated guesses on who will be the fastest cars next season? Absolutely not. With full acknowledgement that these power ranking are indeed ridiculously early, here are the 10 drivers who figure to be the class of the field when racing graces us with its presence once again.
10. Erik Jones
The last spot on the list was also the toughest to pick. It was tough to pass up the likes of Clint Bowyer, who won multiple races in 2018, or Kurt Busch, though it’s equally difficult to forecast anything for him until we know for sure if he’s going to be Kyle Larson’s new teammate or not. But someone has to be on the come up, and Jones feels like as good a bet to improve as anyone.
Incredibly, Jones will still only be 22 years old for the first few months of the 2019 NASCAR season, and he’ll head into Daytona with two full Cup Series seasons under his belt. Unlike 2018, he won’t be switching from another team, so the stability should serve him well.
Though his whole year was up and down, the second half was better than the first, and since he won at Daytona in the summer, it wouldn’t be shocking if he took the Daytona 500 and did what Austin Dillon did this season, locking himself into the playoffs as early as possible. That’ll give him plenty of time to learn even more by the time the final 10 races arrive.