Charlotte starts run of wild-card elimination races in NASCAR Playoffs

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- With the first 2018 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs cutoff race upon us, four of the biggest names in the sport are teetering on the brink of “we’ll get 'em next year” as the championship contender list is officially cut from 16 drivers to 12 following Sunday’s Bank of America Roval 400 on the Charlotte Motor Speedway road course (2 p.m. ET on NBC/NBC Sports App, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). The debut of the 2.28-mile circuit -- road course with a touch of oval -- is either highly anticipated or highly feared, depending on whom you speak with. A good attitude will be essential, however, for those drivers with championship hopes on the line. Their fate rides on this presently untested race venue -- the first road course in the history of NASCAR’s Playoffs. Three of the bottom four playoff drivers -- 13th-ranked Clint Bowyer, 14th-ranked Jimmie Johnson and 16th-ranked Denny Hamlin -- are experienced veterans who have won or challenged for championships. And the other, 15th-ranked Erik Jones, 22, was having the best season of his young career ... up until the playoffs started. RELATED: Full schedule for Charlotte | Behind the scenes at Charlotte road course “Bring on the Roval," Johnson said on Twitter following his eighth-place finish Saturday night at Richmond Raceway -- acknowledging his fate will now be determined at the new venue. Ramping up the pressure is the fact that the wild-card feel to this week's race will likely be repeated during other playoff elimination races. Charlotte’s Roval decides who moves on from the Round of 16. Talladega Superspeedway is the big unknown in the Round of 12 in three weeks and then the new-look ISM Raceway in Phoenix sets the Championship 4 -- the track debuting its own newly renovated look with the start-finish line moving to what used to be the back straightaway. But first, this group of preseason title favorites must navigate their way up through the bottom of the standings on a configuration that has never hosted a Monster Energy Series race before, much less served as a championship cutoff. The right attitude will likely be as important as horsepower and navigation skill for these drivers, in particular. Bowyer, who sits four points outside of the cutoff entering the Charlotte race, has one victory (Fall, 2012) at Charlotte, but has only led four laps there since that win. His last top 10 at Charlotte was an eighth-place finish in 2013. As for road-course racing, Bowyer does have a victory at Sonoma Raceway in 2012 and 10 top-10 finishes in 13 starts there. He was runner-up in 2017 and finished third this summer. He is winless, however, at the Monster Energy Series’ other road course, Watkins Glen. His best showing there is fourth place in 2012. Johnson, 14th in the standings, sits just behind Bowyer. He trails 12th-place Ryan Blaney by only six points. And while this week’s trip to Charlotte features a new track dimension, Johnson has proven to be one of the very best at Charlotte Motor Speedway with eight wins -- most among anyone in this weekend’s field. His last win was the fall 2016 race. And he has 21 top 10s in 34 career starts. His fifth place there this spring is one of only two top fives he’s had in 2018. EXCLUSIVE: Take a lap around the Charlotte road course Johnson’s only road-course win was in 2010 at Sonoma, although he’s had nine top 10s in 17 starts there. His showing at Watkins Glen has been a little less stellar. He has eight top 10s in 17 starts and was 30th last month. “I think surviving is just the biggest thing," Johnson said of the challenge in front of him this week. “We will just go there and give 100 percent and do what we can. “It's been one of those years, but we are going to go down swinging to the bitter end." Of the two drivers -- Jones and Hamlin -- essentially needing a victory to advance in the playoffs, Hamlin has proven himself a road-course favorite while Jones has definitely worked on his learning curve. Jones, who is 21 points south of the cutoff line, finished 19th at Charlotte this spring. His seventh place in June at Sonoma is his best in two outings at that road course. He has two top 10s in two starts at Watkins Glen highlighted by a fifth place this year. Hamlin, who is 29 points behind 12th-place Blaney, is winless on the Charlotte oval but finished among the top five in the last three races there -- leading laps in the last four races. He won in 2016 at Watkins Glen and won the pole position there this summer. He is winless at Sonoma, but finished runner-up in 2016 and has led laps in the last three races there. As for Blaney, the Team Penske driver’s best road-course finishes are ninth in 2017 at Sonoma and eighth at Watkins Glen that same year. Hendrick Motorsports driver Alex Bowman has only a one-point edge on Blaney in the standings -- five points ahead of 13th-place Bowyer. He was ninth at Charlotte earlier this season and ninth again at Sonoma -- his career-best road-course showing.