Five to Watch: Bracing for short-track static in Martinsville playoff weekend

MARTINSVILLE, Va. -- The nitty-gritty of the NASCAR Playoffs remains in full swing, and the next phase kicks off with one of stock-car racing's most tradition-rich venues. Martinsville Speedway is set to host its 142nd race for NASCAR's top division, the opening event in the postseason's Round of 8. Here are five story lines to watch for Sunday's First Data 500 (3 p.m. ET, NBCSN, MRN, SiriusXM).

TITLE TURNABOUT: Claiming one of Martinsville Speedway's traditional grandfather clock trophies ranks high on the prestige scale, but so does the bonus that would come with it for the eight remaining playoff-eligible drivers. For them, victory in Sunday's 500-lapper would also mean an automatic spot among the Championship 4 vying for the Monster Energy Series title at Homestead-Miami Speedway on Nov. 17. For the rest of the field, it's the chance to play spoiler. "That's the goal. That's why we still come to the race track," said Aric Almirola, who qualified fourth in the Stewart-Haas Racing No. 10.

ALL IN ON INTENSITY: The last two playoff races at Martinsville have boiled over with late-race contact, from the Chase Elliott vs. Denny Hamlin battle of 2017 to last year's Joey Logano vs. Martin Truex Jr. clash with the checkered flag on the line. Logano assessed his triumph last year as among the most important in his career, primarily because of how it positioned him for his first premier-series title. "I still look at this race last year as kind of the championship race, in a must-win situation in a way, to be able to make that happen that was great," Logano said. Making that happen meant using the bumper and playing offense, another likelihood come Sunday.

18 AND STRIFE: Kyle Busch's march to the regular-season title placed him among the early favorites for his second premie series crown. But a bit of the luster has faded from the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 18 team, which hasn't won since early June at Pocono and has a strikingly ordinary 14.3 average finish in the six postseason races thus far. It's what has Busch craving a race free of unforced errors. "As far as results of the playoffs, I mean I don’t have a sheet in front of me, but I can run you down problems in every single race," said Busch, a two-time Martinsville winner who has a streak of eight straight top fives here. "There hasn’t been a clean race that we’ve had in the playoffs that have given us the opportunity to run up front all day and be in control of our own destiny toward the end of the race."

BACK NINE: When the green flag falls Sunday, Chase Elliott will have the whole field in front of him after a dramatic engine failure halted his Hendrick Motorsports No. 9 Chevrolet early in first practice. The daunting task of quickly making up ground at one of the circuit's trickiest tracks may preclude Elliott from finishing among the top 10 at the stage breaks (Laps 130 and 260) and gathering valuable surplus points. "Obviously stage points are important, but I’m going to try to get as far forward as I can and get the most points possible at any given point in time," said Elliott, who ranks sixth in the reseeded playoff standings. "Yeah, starting in the back will be unfortunate for that first stage, but there’s nothing I can do about it now."

MOMENTUM SHIFT: Denny Hamlin enters the final elimination series with an extra bit of propulsion after capping a stellar Round of 12 with a Kansas victory last weekend. The resulting energy prompted Hamlin to proclaim his eagerness to get to Martinsville, where he has five career wins. Now that he's arrived, he says the built-up power from 1.5-mile Kansas may not translate to .526-mile Martinsville. "I think momentum stops when you go to an entirely different race track," Hamlin said. "It doesn’t matter if you’ve won four in a row on those mile-and-a-halfs, to then go to Martinsville or Bristol, nothing applies. There really is nothing that applies. Momentum stops when the race tracks become different."