When the NASCAR Cup Series postseason began two weeks after the regular season closed at Darlington, the sanctioning body hoped for one achievement in the 10-team playoff run to Phoenix.
Keep everyone interested.
Through two events in the Round of 16, the obvious question is this: Are you not entertained?
In the Michigan race two weeks ago and last Sunday’s chaotic mess at the Watkins Glen road course, the intrigue factor soared exponentially, especially on the latter’s serpentine configuration.
More than half of the Glen’s 16 playoff contenders were involved in some form of entanglement of consequence, and the few who were unscathed had near misses that likely could have altered their fortunes significantly in the race won by non-championship driver Chris Buescher.
Now it’s on to Bristol, Tenn., to the tiny bullring of Bristol Motor Speedway, a treacherous track where improbable and consequential events lurk at the coliseum-like oval.
“The first round is the scariest it’s been in a long time,” warned No. 20 Toyota driver Christopher Bell before the playoffs began. “And then Bristol, I think everybody’s expecting it to be more of the same as what we had in the spring.”
The spring turned out to be a Grade A mess.
Exacerbated by cooler temperatures, tires showed excessive degradation and exposed cord wear, throwing NASCAR and Goodyear into scramble mode as cars chewed up rubber.
During that St. Patrick’s Day bout of chaos, no drivers were green with envy over the current situation of anyone on track with them.
As BMS refused to take rubber and developed marbles, drivers quickly discovered that the quirky track, almost always presenting a frustrating day of work, was even harder to handle as lap times slowed dramatically and their squirrelly cars slid across the high banks.
In a battle that featured a Bristol-record 54 lead changes, three drivers came home as top dogs with a podium finish: Denny Hamlin, Martin Truex Jr. and Brad Keselowski.
That trio grew up learning how to handle tire-management issues on swelteringly hot summer nights in late model races east of the Mississippi River.
And who are the first three of the four drivers below the cut line who would not advance to next week’s Round of 12 as of now?
Hamlin, Keselowski and Truex.
The Bristol winner in March, Hamlin grids six points behind 12th-place Ty Gibbs, who is tied with Chase Briscoe at plus-6.
Keselowski (-12), Truex (-14) and Harrison Burton (-20) need a win or a healthy chomp of Bristol’s bite to clamp down on the three or four drivers from 12th on down to the top 10 in points.
A chance exists that the two former Cup champions and best-driver-who-hasn’t-won-a-title below the cut line could all be out of the 2024 hunt late Saturday night, especially since anything can happen in the Tennessee mountains — and usually does.
In fact, the points race at the bottom of the standings will likely be better than the race for the checkers up front.
NASCAR would be fine with that.
