For Martin Truex, Jr., 2003 has been a much better year than 2022. While Truex was winless on the NASCAR Cup circuit last year, he is excelling this year. Monday marked the third victory in the last ten starts. After the 2023 Crayon 301 race, Truex’s ELO rating is 1787 (3.0.2).
After the twentieth race of the season, Truex is the top NASCAR playoff points standings with 667 points. Currently, the top ELO-rated driver, Joey Logano (1895) is ranked ninth in playoff points. The driver with the next highest ELO rating, Chase Elliot (1862), is below the playoff cutline at twenty-third in the points standing.
The table below lists the top 16 playoff points as of Tuesday, July 18th. With six more races to earn playoff points through the Coke Zero Sugar 400 race on August 26th, it will be interesting to see if two other top 10 ELO-rated drivers can make the playoffs in A. J. Allmendinger (1788) and Justin Haley (1785).
| RANK | DRIVER | POINTS | WINS | ELO | ||
| 1 | Martin Truex, Jr. | 667 | 3 | 1787 | ||
| 2 | William Byron | 650 | 4 | 1801 | ||
| 3 | Christopher Bell | 605 | 1 | 1574 | ||
| 4 | Denny Hamlin | 601 | 1 | 1840 | ||
| 5 | Kyle Busch | 593 | 3 | 1684 | ||
| 6 | Ross Chastain | 589 | 1 | 1551 | ||
| 7 | Ryan Blaney | 581 | 1 | 1605 | ||
| 8 | Kyle Larson | 574 | 2 | 1798 | ||
| 9 | Kevin Harvick | 568 | 0 | 1707 | ||
| 10 | Joey Logano | 563 | 1 | 1895 | ||
| 11 | Brad Keselowski | 539 | 0 | 1859 | ||
| 12 | Chris Buescher | 528 | 0 | 1778 | ||
| 13 | Tyler Reddick | 516 | 1 | 1646 | ||
| 14 | Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. | 464 | 1 | 1661 | ||
| 15 | Bubba Wallace | 433 | 0 | 1692 | ||
| 16 | Michael McDowell | 432 | 0 | 1827 |