Points, who's hot, what to watch as Round 1 of the NASCAR Cup Playoffs kick off at Darlington.
- Who’s In?
- Where Are the Playoffs?
- Who Are the Big Winners This Season?
- What Happened Truex Jr. at Daytona?
- Musical Chairs to Replace Kurt Busch
- Pass the Wrench
- The championship-deciding series opens this weekend with the Cookout Southern 500 at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway.
- Kyle Larson won last year’s title with five Playoff victories and three other top-10s.
- Chase Elliott won the 2020 Cup with three Playoff victories and four other top-10s.
This time, they may be wrong. After saying NASCAR’s annual Playoff Series has become fairly predictable in recent years, the “self-styled experts” may want to consider that this year’s 10-race series may be more wide-open than ever.
For example:
Kyle Larson won last year’s title with five Playoff victories and three other top-10s. Chase Elliott won the 2020 Cup with three Playoff victories and four other top-10s. Kyle Busch, the 2019 champion, won only one Playoff race, but had five other top-10s. During every recent Playoff one driver has been so dominant the outcome hasn’t been a great surprise.
Raise your hand if you see anyone capable of repeating what the last three champions have done. That’s why serious NASCAR-watchers think at least a half-dozen drivers are capable of taking the Cup rather than two or three.
Who’s In?
A reminder: the 16-driver field includes rookie Austin Cindric; winless Ryan Blaney; former champions Larson, Elliott, Busch, Kevin Harvick, and Joey Logano; five first-time NASCAR winners: Cindric, Ross Chastain, Chase Briscoe, Tyler Reddick, and Daniel Suarez; and four in the Playoffs for the first time: Cindric, Chastain, Briscoe, and Suarez.
Half the drivers race Chevrolets, five others are in Fords, and only three are with Toyota.
Playoff qualifier Kyle Busch and the rest of the NASCAR Cup field take to Darlington this weekend.
Icon SportswireGetty Images
Where Are the Playoffs?
The championship-deciding series opens this weekend with the Cookout Southern 500 at mean and treacherous ol’ Darlington (S.C.) Raceway.
The tour then goes on consecutive weekends to Kansas City and Bristol to complete Round 1 of the four-round series. Round 2 includes Fort Worth, Talladega, and the Charlotte Roval, followed by Round 3 at Las Vegas, Homestead, and Martinsville.
The championship race among the Championship 4 finalists is scheduled for Nov. 6 at Phoenix Raceway.
Who Are the Big Winners This Season?
Elliott leads the field with four victories, but none in the past five races. Still, that’s twice as many as former champions Larson, Logano, and Kevin Harvick. Relative newcomers Chastain and Reddick also have two victories, plus veterans Denny Hamlin and William Byron. (Hamlin was disqualified after he “won” at Pocono in July; the unexpected victory went to Elliott).
Half the field won only once or was winless in the 26 regular-season races: Busch, Dillon, Christopher Bell, Alex Bowman, Briscoe, Suarez, and Cindric. Blaney was 0-for-26, but got in on points after surviving the bizarre recent regular-season finale in Daytona Beach.
What Happened Truex Jr. at Daytona?
About that 400-miler: Blaney advanced by finishing 15th in the Coke Zero 400. When the race was interrupted by rain after 139 laps, he was six points behind Martin Truex Jr. for one of two points-based Playoff spots. But when Dillon rallied to win and qualify as a winner, the lone points-based Playoff spot went to Blaney instead of eighth-finishing Truex Jr.
Confusing? Not really: Blaney started the race 25 points ahead of Truex Jr. Despite finishing seven positions behind Truex Jr., that cushion got Blaney into the Playoffs by three points. If one of the year’s previous winners had repeated, both Blaney and Truex Jr. would have advanced. When Dillon passed Cindric for the victory in the final laps, it brought Blaney into the Playoffs as well.
“We had too much damage at the end,” said Truex Jr., whose Toyota had been damaged in an earlier incident. “We had a good spot on the restart (after the long rain delay) and got a good restart. We got the 2 (Cindric) up front, which is what we were trying to do.”
“But we couldn’t keep up; there was too much damage. It’s a shame. We knew it was going to be tough with so many cars out and the distance between me and the 12 (Blaney). It was going to be hard to hang on to fourth or better with a car that torn up.”
Blaney, one of the tour’s most popular and “real” drivers, probably spoke for the whole field in his post-race comments.
“I just want to go home, crack open a beer, and relax a little bit,” he said after the race. (The race began at 10 a.m., was interrupted 3-plus hours by rain, and finished late in the afternoon). “That was a stressful day and a long weekend. We had no qualifying, no getting in the car, no race last night. You wait around today after you get wrecked and have a three-hour delay. I’m definitely mentally drained. We’re very fortunate, that’s for sure.”
Blaney’s outlook looked bleak after he was involved in an early-race accident. “At that point, our fate was not really in our hands,” he said after finishing six laps behind. “All we could do was keep working on it and fix it to where we could make laps. Thankfully, we were able to get (past) enough cars throughout the wrecks that we kept moving up and were able to get in. That’s definitely a lot more stressful than I wanted coming in here.
“You try to stay optimistic, in the game and not think about the negatives. Even though it’s not easy, you try not to think about the negatives. You know … you never know what can happen.”
Bubba Wallace will move from the 23 to the 54 car for the Playoffs.
Chris GraythenGetty Images
Musical Chairs to Replace Kurt Busch
23XI Racing is trading cars for the last 10 races so its No. 54 Toyota can make a run at NASCAR’s Owners’ Championship.
Team driver Bubba Wallace will move from his No. 23 Toyota to the team’s No. 54 while grandson Ty Gibbs finishes the season in the No. 23. Neither driver is eligible for the Driver’s Championship, but 23XI Racing expects Wallace to score more owner points in No. 54 than Ty Gibbs would have.
Gibbs, a full-schedule Xfinity star, moved into the No. 54 after Kurt Busch was injured at Pocono Raceway in June. It’s looking more and more doubtful he’ll return this year.
Pass the Wrench
NASCAR has extended from six to 10 minutes the time crews have to make repairs in their pit. In the past, cars were waved to the garage if they couldn’t return to the track after six minutes. The change is effective with this weekend’s Playoff-opening race at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway.
Keyword: Why This Year's NASCAR Playoffs Might Be Most Wide Open Ever