Stats: Are short tracks the real wild cards of NASCAR playoffs?

The 2019 NASCAR Playoffs take a trip to Virginia this weekend for some Saturday night short-trackin'. With so much focus on next week's Roval at Charlotte Motor Speedway and the looming Talladega Superspeedway as the "wild cards" of the postseason, we're here to tell you that maybe, just maybe, these short tracks might have a little something up their sleeves, too. NASCAR's smaller venues have shown a wide range of parity this year, opening up the door for some lagging playoff drivers to make their mark or things to go terribly wrong for those on the good side of the bubble. On to the stats!

Denny Hamlin's win in the Bristol Night Race last month marked the fourth different race winner in four short track races this season, following Brad Keselowski's win at Martinsville in the spring, Martin Truex Jr.'s trip to Victory Lane at Richmond and Kyle Busch's win at Bristol in the spring race.

Chase Elliott (Bristol-1), Joey Logano (Martinsville), Kevin Harvick (Richmond-1) and Denny Hamlin (Bristol-2) marked four different pole winners in four races, too. To make matters more interesting, none of them went on to win the race, either.

Two of those pole winners got close in other races, however, with Chase Elliott and Joey Logano notching runner-up finishes at Martinsville and Richmond, respectively. Matt DiBenedetto (Bristol-2) and Kurt Busch (Bristol-1) notched the other two runner-ups making it, you guessed it, four different runner-ups in four races.

And the names at the top aren't all the same, as 11 different drivers have notched a top five in those four races. Denny Hamlin has the most, going a perfect four-for-four.

Same goes for top 10s, too, as 18 different drivers have scored a top 10 across those four races. Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin and Clint Bowyer are the only three drivers to land in the top 10 in all four.

With so many short tracks being "rhythm tracks" where it's not uncommon for a driver to really get in a groove and reel off eye-popping laps led numbers, we haven't seen that a ton this year. Keselowski led 446 laps at Martinsville en route to victory, but across those four races 14 different drivers have paced the field. The other three races all had five drivers or more lead double-digit laps, too. (Bristol-2 had nine!)

We see the typical short-track aces near the top of the list, but it's not just the Brad Keselowskis and Kyle Busches of the world tearing it up on them. Eight drivers are averaging a top 10 finish through these four races, with a ninth in Ryan Blaney right on the cusp (10.75).