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Updated May 12
David Ragan has arrived.
Oh, he's probably not championship material quite yet, but his career has taken a steep climb upward in his second season in the Cup Series.
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| David Ragan rebounded from his Daytona disaster, climbing to the top 12 in points. (Getty Images) |
For the naysayers, the Daytona 500 looked to be the beginning of the end for Ragan's tenure with Roush. He finished 42nd, wrecking teammate Matt Kenseth in the process.
But Ragan persevered and he followed the Daytona debacle with a 14th-place run at California and seventh at Las Vegas. And there have been more solid runs, such as 11th at Martinsville, 13th at Texas and fourth at Talladega.
Saturday night at Darlington Raceway, often described as the most challenging track on the schedule, Ragan finished fifth for his second top five and third top 10 in 11 races, already matching his season totals from a year ago. It also moved him into the top 12 in the point standings.
"That's an awesome run," Ragan said. "Whether we were at Daytona, Talladega or Richmond or Bristol, that would be great, but to do it at Darlington is just something special. Darlington is an awesome track. You're running laps out there and you think about the guys that made this place famous like Cale Yarborough and Bill Elliott and David Pearson and people like that. It just makes you realize how fortunate we are to come out here and race at such a cool track.
"Our pit crew did an awesome job. We picked up spots every time, and it was an overall great run. We're getting this deal somewhat figured out. We've had some good race cars, we just have to fine tune a little bit to try and win one of these things."
Power Rankings after Darlington:
| POWER RANKINGS | ||
| Current | Driver | Previous |
| 1 | Kyle Busch | 1 |
| He's off to the same kind of start Jeff Gordon enjoyed a season ago. | ||
| 2 | Carl Edwards | 2 |
| His team worked mighty hard to snag that second-place finish because his car was junk through all the practices and qualifying and wasn't much better through the early portion of Saturday night's race. | ||
| 3 | Denny Hamlin | 3 |
| Comes back with a solid seventh-place run after the disappointment of the win that got away at Richmond. | ||
| 4 | Dale Earnhardt Jr. | 4 |
| He's been putting his car up front -- leading double-digit laps in all but two races -- but victory continues to elude him. | ||
| 5 | Jeff Burton | 5 |
| Darlington can bite you, but he kept his car clean all night and snagged yet another top 10. Still no finish worse than 13th this season. | ||
| 6 | Clint Bowyer | 6 |
| He struggled all night, twice falling a lap down, but cautions earned him the free pass and he was able to salvage a decent 15th. | ||
| 7 | Tony Stewart | 7 |
| It took awhile for his crew to get his car back up to speed after an early wreck with Elliott Sadler. By the end of the race, he was among the fastest on the track, but cautions never came at the right time to get him the free pass, and he finished a lap down in 21st. | ||
| 8 | Jeff Gordon | 9 |
| Reporter: "Could you talk about the feeling that Kyle must be enjoying right now about how when you get up on race day you know you're gonna be up front and running for the wins, having so much success on a week in, week out basis?" Gordon: "No, I've forgotten what it was like, so I can't answer that." Funny, but so far true this season. | ||
| 9 | Kevin Harvick | 8 |
| He appeared to have a car at the very least capable of a top five, but he lost it and smacked the wall. After extensive repairs, he wound up 39th. | ||
| 10 | Jimmie Johnson | 10 |
| Jimmie Johnson: After three consecutive top fives, the 48 team has turned in three consecutive finishes outside the top 10. Saturday they were derailed by a bad alternator. | ||
| 11 | Greg Biffle | 11 |
| Would have been nice to see a Biffle-Busch battle for the win as they were clearly the class of the field, but mistakes and a parts failure were his undoing again. | ||
| 12 | Matt Kenseth | 16 |
| Led three laps Saturday night, only the second time in the past eight races he has managed to lead. | ||
| 13 | David Ragan | 17 |
| Who'd have guessed that he'd have more top five finishes than Kenseth at this point in the season? | ||
| 14 | Ryan Newman | 12 |
| A tough night all around. It started early with an unscheduled stop for a damaged splitter and got a lot worse later when he had to bring it to the garage to fix a broken rear end. | ||
| 15 | Martin Truex Jr. | 15 |
| His No. 1 car was looking strong through the middle part of the race, but contact with Hamlin sent him into the wall, and his car was never the same as he faded to 14th. | ||
| 16 | Juan Pablo Montoya | 13 |
| Following his second at Talladega, he has put up a couple of duds. | ||
| 17 | Kasey Kahne | 14 |
| Wrecked his primary car in qualifying and was forced to his backup, which wasn't up to snuff. | ||
| 18 | Bobby Labonte | 18 |
| He ran among the top 10 the first half of the race, but once the track cooled, he started to struggle with a tight race car. | ||
| 19 | Travis Kvapil | NR |
| For a while there I thought he might challenge for the victory, but he had to settle for eighth. Hopefully, the strong efforts of him and Yates Racing teammate David Gilliland will land them full-time sponsors soon. | ||
| 20 | Mark Martin | 20 |
| Martin Martin: Dropped to 35th in the early going and was never a factor, winding up 16th. | ||