Five thoughts after Saturday night’s NASCAR playoff race at Bristol Motor Speedway, the Round 1 elimination race …
1. Taking Stock
Earlier this month, The Athletic anonymously polled all 16 NASCAR playoff drivers on a variety of topics — one of which included their pick for the biggest surprise early elimination.
Martin Truex Jr. received the most votes, and Brad Keselowski was tied for second. Both were ousted from the playoffs Saturday night after Round 1.
But is it really a “surprise” elimination if people anticipated the possibility? Sure, they were both big names — future Hall of Famers and former NASCAR champions. Neither had been running well enough to make anyone think they could make a championship run, though, and they were joined on the chopping block by the only two drivers in the field who were making first-time playoff appearances (Ty Gibbs and Harrison Burton).
Ultimately, the results from Round 1 ended up dropping the Nos. 14, 15 and 16 seeds (Burton, Gibbs and Truex, respectively) from the playoffs — plus the No. 8 seed in Keselowski. That’s a long way of saying Round 1 contained no true major surprises, which is actually the biggest shock of all.
After all, this was supposed to be the scariest first round in the 11-year history of NASCAR’s elimination playoff system — a three-race slate which had drivers openly fretting. There was a superspeedway to start (Atlanta), followed by a road course with a new tire (Watkins Glen) and a high tire-wear short track race to cap it off at Bristol.
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Except Atlanta was far calmer than expected (save for a mistake from Kyle Larson), the dramatic lap-time falloff at Watkins Glen never materialized, and Bristol’s tires turned out to be the complete opposite of what was seen there earlier this year.
At least one of the top contenders for the championship had been expected to fall out early, a victim of this wild-card type of round. But it just didn’t happen that way; all seven drivers who had realistic championship odds on BetMGM before the playoffs (+1500 and higher) are still alive and just so happen to enter Round 2 as the top seven seeds.
Perhaps others like Joey Logano, Chase Briscoe and Alex Bowman will all crash the party after these next three weeks. Heck, one of the bottom five seeds is guaranteed to do so (since eight drivers advance to Round 3). But at this point, the actual championship picture hasn’t changed at all.
Is that good? Bad? Well, it depends on your perspective. NASCAR seemingly designed the first two rounds for maximum chaos (a superspeedway and road course in each), so from an entertainment standpoint, this round didn’t deliver on the hype.
But in terms of having the best drivers remaining to compete for the title? Check. And to be clear, you won’t find any complaints here about the playoff field being as strong as possible.
It’s just given how it was set up, the expected September Silliness simply never came to fruition.
2. What If?
Here are some alternate storylines we’d be talking about today had a few things unfolded differently.
• If Truex doesn’t speed on pit road: The 44-year-old Truex will end his future Hall of Fame career as a one-time NASCAR champion. Now the only question is whether his July 2023 victory at New Hampshire Motor Speedway — the 34th of his career — will turn out to have been his last one. That’s all Truex has to race for now after getting eliminated early, and his costly speeding penalty in Stage 3 left him mired in the middle of the pack (and he never came close to recovering). Still, we’ll never know for sure whether that was the deciding moment of his brief playoffs. Truex finished 24th, but missed the next round by 21 points — so he would have needed to finish in the top three regardless of the penalty. Did he have the car to do it? It might have been a tall order, but at least he would have given himself a shot.
• If Ty Gibbs doesn’t speed on pit road: Similar to Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Truex, Gibbs was hampered by a costly speeding penalty from which he never fully recovered. The penalty cost him potential stage points, although he later drove back into the top 10 before fading to 15th. He missed the playoff cut by 11 points, so he would have needed to finish at least fourth to put him into a tiebreaker situation — which, like Truex, was no guarantee.
• If Daniel Suárez wasn’t stellar at Atlanta: Suárez made the playoffs by winning a three-wide photo finish at Atlanta in the spring, then advanced on the strength of his second-place finish there earlier this month. If not for his Atlanta excellence, Suárez doesn’t make the 16-driver field nor advance from Round 1. He had an absolutely miserable night on Saturday, running four laps down and finishing 31st — which left him with only six points scored on the night. But Suárez made it through to Round 2 by 11 points anyway, thanks in large part to his 42-point haul at Atlanta.
3. NASquirks
Look, the tires were obviously a hot topic again at Bristol. But we just wrote about the subject last week, and Saturday night’s issue falls into the same category. It’s a frustrating discussion.
So let’s talk about something else. The Friday news conference revealing the rare NASCAR driver trade between Spire Motorsports and Rick Ware Racing was quite a unique scene, as a similar situation — all parties onstage to discuss the move at the same time — may have never taken place before.
Justin Haley and Corey LaJoie, seated on opposite sides of the dais, were joined by Spire co-owner Jeff Dickerson and RWR president Robby Benton. And though there were mostly grim faces, the arrangement clearly made sense for everyone.
Over the summer, Haley signed a contract — he wouldn’t specify with whom, though RWR alliance partner Brad Keselowski indicated it was Hendrick — for an opportunity that was too good to pass up. Though there was speculation Haley could take Alex Bowman’s ride (which Bowman continuously denied), he was ultimately announced to drive for Spire (which is a Hendrick alliance partner).
Meanwhile, LaJoie was told around the same time that he was being fired from his No. 7 car at Spire at the end of the season. And during his search for a new job, RWR has emerged as a viable candidate — meaning the trade allows both teams and drivers to start building for the future.
Though there were different manufacturers involved and the teams have no formal connection, the relationship between Dickerson and Benton allowed for the type of candor and honesty needed to execute this type of trade within 36 hours of when the talks began.
“(Benton) was just like, ‘I think I can get more out of him than you,’” Dickerson said. “He said that as friends, and as competitors and colleagues. Not in an ugly way, right? It just stuck with me. … I had some pretty conflicting emotions going through it with Corey, and so you hear that and it’s just like a relief, in a way.
“Those bonds are still real. So when we picked up the baton this week, it was just like, ‘Man, let’s get this thing across the line,’ because it’s unique in that respect.”
The drivers will make the team switch beginning this week at Kansas, with Haley driving the No. 7 and LaJoie moving to the No. 51.
4. Championship 4cast
In this space throughout the playoffs, we’re taking a look at the current power rankings for the Championship 4 and comparing them to our pre-playoff picks (Christopher Bell, Tyler Reddick, Kyle Larson and Ryan Blaney).
1. Larson (pre-playoffs: 3; last week: 4): How can Larson not claim the No. 1 spot after his Bristol performance? Larson’s 462 laps led were the third-most at Bristol in NASCAR’s Modern Era and the most ever led in a single race for a Hendrick Motorsports driver (beating Jeff Gordon’s 1997 mark). Despite his Atlanta crash, he sailed into the next round and regained his comfortable cushion to the elimination line.
2. Bell (pre-playoffs: 1; last week: 1): Bell has been our championship pick since midsummer, and Round 1 showed exactly why. He finished the trio of races as the points leader and got his 11th top-five of the season on Saturday to tie for the series lead. Talladega is scary for anyone in this round, but strong runs at Kansas and the Roval should get him through to Round 3 (which suits him much better).
3. Reddick (pre-playoffs: 2; last week: 2): This was certainly not an ideal night for Reddick, who surprisingly struggled with his speed and finished 20th. He now has back-to-back finishes of 20th or worse for the first time since May but should be a serious threat to win at Kansas next week.
4. Blaney (pre-playoffs: 4; last week: 3): If Blaney is finishing races lately, he’s running in the top 10. His last five results have gone like this: crash-crash-top 10-crash-top 10. Now the real test begins with a trip to Kansas, where it will be fascinating to see how Team Penske’s intermediate track speed stacks up with Hendrick and JGR.
Honorable mention: Chase Elliott, Denny Hamlin, Alex Bowman, William Byron.
5. Best of the Rest
• Bubba Wallace: Though scoring 68 points this round would not have gotten him through to Round 2 even if he had made the playoffs, Wallace finished third at Bristol to record his best finish in nearly a year. With seven races still remaining this season, Wallace has now set new career highs in top-fives, top-10s and is currently tied for his best average finish.
• Ryan Preece: After finishing seventh at Bristol, Preece now has back-to-back top-10 finishes for the second time in his career — and the first since the opening races of the 2021 season.
• Ross Chastain: The Trackhouse driver went 13th-fourth-10th this round to score 103 total points, which was tied for the second-most of any driver. Chastain recorded back-to-back top-10 finishes for the first time since early March and has seven top-15 finishes in the last eight races — which has him tied with Larson for the third-best average finish in the Cup Series this year.
(Photo of Kyle Larson celebrating Saturday’s win: James Gilbert / Getty Images)
