Breaking It Down: What does the Round of 12 hold in store for drivers still in the Cup playoffs?
The first round of the playoffs ended with a bang in Bristol with top-tier drivers Kevin Harvick and defending NASCAR Cup Series champion Joey Logano failing to advance to the round of 12.
If you said those drivers would be first-round exits at the beginning of the year, people would have called you crazy! That's the power of Bristol.
Michael McDowell had a strong run finishing 5th, but due to a poor first two races, McDowell's door on a Round of 12 bid closed. It was a must-win situation.
The final driver eliminated was Ricky Stenhouse Jr. He ran a solid race as well, but in a win-or-go-home scenario, the second was the outcome. This team was just happy they were in the playoffs. And to their credit, the 47 team ran solid enough and left the playoffs with some added respect.
Harvick had a slow car all day, finishing five laps down, and missed out on points while Bubba Wallace took that final spot. Bristol is normally a track that Harvick thrives on, so to lose out here in his last-ever start at the half-mile bullring was surprising, to say the least.
For Logano, a bad position in the third stage meant he was involved in a wreck with Corey Lajoie. That wrecked proved to be the end of the road for Logano, and the end of the road for his playoff or back-to-back championship hopes.
Now with the first round gone, we take a look back to
my predictions and metric-based projections from three weeks ago, prior to the start of the playoffs. Both McDowell and Stenhouse's predictions were correct, but not Harvick or Logano.
Let's take a look at these next three races and what we can potentially expect:
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The biggest thing is to expect the unexpected. The Round of 12 -- a.k.a. the second round of the Cup playoffs -- includes the middle race of the round (Talladega), where anything can happen. Throw in the fact a road course (Charlotte) is the cutoff race and you've got an exciting Round of 12 lineup.
The opening race in Texas this weekend is about the only race in this round where things may go as expected.
Texas is a 1.5-mile super speedway that NASCAR only runs one weekend per season (after more than two decades of two races per season). The recent repave means the track is a "one groove" layout, which means it's all about qualifying and strategy.
The stage one results will look very similar to the qualifying order. Someone like Christopher Bell benefits from this since he has achieved pole position in all three playoff races so far.
Other drivers that qualify well include Tyler Reddick, Bubba Wallace, William Byron, Denny Hamlin, and Martin Truex Jr., so expect those drivers to have an advantage in Texas.
Especially look out for those drivers who make a living on speedways, particularly the quartet from Joe Gibbs Racing, who seem to always perform well on 1.5-mile tracks. The likes of Hamlin, Truex, and Bell, let alone all the Toyota's, have an advantage on paper. The Ford's were fast deep in the heart of Texas last year, so maybe it's the Chevy's who feel in trouble here. Drivers like Ross Chastain and Kyle Busch may be on the backend.
Ryan Blaney won this race last year with Ford having three of the top four finishers. Could there be more of the same this year?
The second race is Talledega which means one thing ... chaos!
You can be the fastest car on the track but only take home 3 points from this race. It's all about survival while trying to win at the same time ... a combination not possible most times.
That's why you can't predict these superspeedway races.
A prime example is Byron. More often than not, he runs top 10 averages at superspeedways. Yet again more times than not, he fails to finish the race in the end. This year has been a different story for the Hendrick driver though.
The 23xi teammates of Wallace and Reddick run well at Texas as well, but sometimes they leave with minimal points.
Also, watch out for RFK teammates Brad Keselowski and Chris Buescher, as they finished 1-2 in Daytona. Could they repeat in Talladega? Once again, you can't predict anything here, so it's best not to speculate.
The final race is the Charlotte Road Course. Look for strong road racers like Kyle Larson, Reddick, and Ross Chastain to be among the favorites here.
Some drivers that could be at risk if they are below the cutline heading into Charlotte could be Keselowski, Wallace, and potentially Blaney. The non-traditional road course racers will not want to be below the cutline, while drivers who specialize at these tracks will feel good about their chances if they enter the event above the cutline.
In previous years the Charlotte cut-off race has provided highly entertaining races, given the nature of the event. This year's race will re-introduce the stage break cautions as well, so the strategy will play a bigger factor here now as well.
The cut-off from 12 to 8 after Charlotte means that some of the best drivers in the sport will reach their fate after a grueling road course race.
All in all, these three races are unpredictable, to say the least. Some drivers that could be in trouble given the races and their current position would be Keselowski, Wallace, Reddick, Truex, and Bell. But overall, any of these guys can win and race and lock in their spot in the round of 8.