Gordon, team creating own luck in dominating 2007

Each week SI.com's Mark Beech will evaluate and rank the 10 best drivers in NASCAR.

NASCAR Power Rankings Rank Last Week   Driver 1 1 Jeff Gordon So, OK, last week will be the final time I suggest he might be coming back to the pack a bit ... until he actually does it more than one race at a time. Lots of people left Pocono convinced he got lucky, but the result just made me more certain that -- as I wrote in SI a few weeks ago -- Hendrick Motorsports is filled top to bottom with more smart and talented people than any other team in NASCAR. Can we expect more of the same at Michigan? Well, he finished eighth and second there last year, and has two wins,15 top fives and an average finish of 10.0. So ... yes, we can probably expect more of the same. 2 2 Jimmie Johnson I know he dropped two spots to fourth in the power rankings that shall not be named, but really, who do you think is more likely to win any given race? Johnson or Hamlin? Johnson or Kenseth? To me, until I see differently, it's Johnson on both counts, even if he did finish second-to-last at Pocono. And Michigan? He's never won there in 10 starts, but he does have four top 10s and a series high 441 fastest laps run. 3 3 Denny Hamlin Another race, another near miss that he can blame on a woulda-coulda-shoulda. This one can be traced back, in part at least, to a miscalculation in the pits. It's too bad, as in the early going, I didn't think there would be anyone who could compete with him. He's only run twice in Michigan, finishing 12th and ninth there last year. 4 4 Matt Kenseth What this guy has done with a car that's merely pretty good might be the most impressive performance of the season ... with all apologies to the incumbent No. 1 on this list, of course. Kenseth was ninth last weekend (yawn), and that 25-point penalty he got at Daytona was erased a long time ago. Still, to be competitive for the championship, he needs to get some wins before the Chase begins ... and I'm not sure that's going to happen much. There's always Michigan, of course, where he's got two wins, 10 top 10s and an average finish of 7.933. 5 5 Tony Stewart Of the Gibbs drivers, I'm most confident that it's going to be Stewart who reaches Victory Lane first. He was fifth last week at Pocono, and even led a couple of laps. Can he get it done at Michigan? Perhaps. He's won there once, and finished 41st and third a year ago. 6 6 Jeff Burton After his win at Texas, I was pretty confident that Burton was going to be able to contend for the Cup this year. Now I'm not so sure. Texas was the last time he finished in the top five, and his 13th-place finish at Pocono was sixth time in the last seven races that he's finished outside of the top 10. I don't see things picking up at Michigan, where he's never won and has only eight top-10 finishes in 26 races. But I've been wrong before ... 7 8 Clint Bowyer His 10th-place finish at Pocono was his fourth such result in the last five races. He actually seems like more of a threat to win lately than Burton, his teammate at RCR. Michigan might present a problem, though, as he finished 39th and 33rd there last year in his only two career starts. 8 7 Carl Edwards His last five races have looked like this: 12th, fifth, 15th, third, 14th. I guess that means we'll see a top-five result from Edwards this weekend, right? Maybe. He's got four top 10s in five career races at Michigan. 9 10(a) Kevin Harvick Pocono makes four straight races that have seen him finish outside of the top 10. He's got four top 10s in 12 career races in Michigan, but no wins. 10 NR Martin Truex Jr. Two top fives (including a win) in his last two starts, as well as a spot in the top 12 of the power rankings that shall not be named. He's shown himself more capable of winning this season than six other drivers on this list. He wasn't so hot at Michigan last year, finishing 16th and 30th, but he seems to be a completely different driver right now. 10(a) 10 Mark Martin With no wins, I bumped him down below Mr. Truex ... and the fact that he's open about the fact that he doesn't care if he wins the Cup or not. Still, if he's on the track, he's one of the top-10 drivers in any race.