NASCAR Power Rankings: Ryan Blaney leads Championship 4 drivers into Phoenix season finale

When he spoke to CBS Sports at the outset of the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series playoffs, Ryan Blaney shared that above all else, he entered this year’s race for the championship motivated by the opportunity to win back-to-back Cup titles — something only a select few elites to ever set foot in a stock car have ever been able to lay a claim to.

Throughout NASCAR’s history, only 10 drivers have been able to win the Cup championship in consecutive years. The great Buck Baker was first to do so in 1956 and 1957, and following him were Lee Petty (1958-59), Joe Weatherly (1962-63), David Pearson (1968-69), Richard Petty (1971-72, 74-75), Cale Yarborough (1976-1978), Darrell Waltrip (1981-82), Dale Earnhardt (1986-87, 1990-91, 93-94), Jeff Gordon (1997-98) and Jimmie Johnson (2006-10).

It’s been nearly 15 years since Johnson’s record streak of five consecutive titles, which is partially a product of NASCAR’s playoff era presenting so many variables and so many obstacles in the way of repeat champions. But by using the system to his advantage, earning a walk-off win at Martinsville to seize a Championship 4 spot, Blaney has given himself a chance to achieve that feat and satisfy the desire he has felt to feel the same feelings he did at this time a year ago.

“I don’t know the explanation, but I’ve been so much more hungry to try to win a second one than I was trying to get my first, if that makes any sense,” Blaney told CBS Sports in September. “Because you get a taste of that success and you get a taste of the championship, but you’re greedy and you want seconds and thirds and things like that. I think it’s even more on the top of our brains because you’ve done it.

“I think there’s a big difference in believing you can do it and knowing you can do it because you’ve achieved it. Everyone believes they can do it, but until you actually know that you can do it and you’ve accomplished it, then you’re like, ‘Alright, it’s solidified we have what it takes to do this — let’s do it again.’ So I think you’ve got to get that feeling again, and once you have it you want to figure out how to get it back. And the only way to get it back is winning another title.”

Considering the groundswell of momentum he now enters Phoenix with, Blaney sits atop all Championship 4 drivers in the new CBS Sports NASCAR Power Rankings entering the season finale and Championship Race: