CONCORD, N.C. — No matter their rank in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs, drivers feel the intensity of elimination races at the end of each postseason round.
Just ask Joey Logano, the 2018 champion who finds himself 18 points to the good heading into Sunday’s Bank of America Roval 400 (2 p.m. ET, NBC, NBC Sports App, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), which serves as the event that sets the grid for the Round of 8.
“Yeah. I mean, it’s a lot on the line this week. Trying to keep championship hopes alive,” Logano said Saturday at Charlotte Motor Speedway. “You’ve got to get through this round.”
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The Cup field will race around the 17-turn, 2.28-mile road-course-oval combination in NASCAR’s hometown, but some drivers have more cushion to lean on than others. Logano will start Sunday’s race from the pole position, the first time he’ll do so at a road course since Sonoma Raceway in 2011. That still doesn’t quell his playoff concerns.
Road courses provide the opportunity — or perhaps necessity — to sacrifice stage points to instead compete for the win, creating a murky outlook for crew chiefs trying to strategize a race.
“It’s tough no matter what position you’re in, right?” he said. “You feel more comfortable as that cushion gets bigger, and you feel more desperate the further you are behind it. So it’s an interesting place to live when you think about it, especially how you run this race, right? When you have a [elimination] race at a road course, it makes it pretty tricky on how you’re going to call this race right? Every crew chief right now is wondering, well, do we need stage points? Do we go for stage points? If I take stage points how far back is it gonna cycle me in the back in the field? Am I gonna restart 20th? Am I gonna restart 30th? 15th? I don’t know.
“So every crew chief in the playoffs right now is thinking about that — not to mention, the guys that aren’t in the playoffs that still have reasons to race for points. So it makes it a really hard call for the crew chiefs here on what’s defining success for the day.”
The playoff picture was also reshuffled midweek when William Byron and the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports team won an appeal of a penalty issued after Byron intentionally contacted Denny Hamlin at Texas Motor Speedway. Byron was initially docked 25 points and fined $50,000, but the National Motorsports Appeals Panel amended the penalty to nullify the points penalty and up the fine to $100,000.
The outcome: Byron enters Sunday’s race 14 points above the elimination line; Daniel Suárez falls to the eighth and final transfer spot 12 points to the good; and Chase Briscoe and Austin Cindric each enter 12 points out. Briscoe and Cindric were initially locked in a virtual tie for the final transfer spot.
Despite bumping above the elimination line, Byron feels no more comfortable.
“We prepared before Thursday like we were behind,” said Byron, who said he readied for the weekend by karting in Mooresville. “So I think that for us, we just focused on this race a lot. Road courses have been not great for me this year. I feel like mostly it’s just knowing what the car needs and just doing the right things preparation wise to make the right decisions and felt like this week was good.”
Similarly, Suárez said his weekend will go the same regardless of Byron’s situation.
“Honestly, for me, I don’t care,” Suárez said. “That’s something that I can’t control. He can be 20 points below or 20 pounds points above and I don’t care. I can only control one car and that’s the 99 car. You know, for me, honestly, right now to before the whole point situation that happened to them, nothing has changed. Nothing has changed. And the only thing it changed is our position but points wise, it’s exactly the same.
“So we just have to go out there and do our thing. We have a very, very good program when it comes to road course stuff. We have showed that in the past. We have to go out there have fun and do things no different than any of the other road course stuff that we have done. I think that yeah, definitely we’re not in a comfortable position like some of the other guys, but I think we’re gonna be good.”
Briscoe, on the other hand, took umbrage with the timing of the appeal hearing.
“It’s extremely frustrating,” Briscoe, ninth in points, said. “I respect the appeal process. I think it’s something that we need. But there’s, I think, zero reason why we should ever run a race in the playoffs with an appeal [pending]. … We ran a race before the decision was made. If there’s an appeal, we need to have a decision before the playoff race. Because what if that was the [elimination] race? … They would have had to make a decision.”
Briscoe’s focus now shifts to finding a strategy to advance after qualifying 17th.
“I mean, we got to go get points,” Briscoe said. “You know, it’s tough because where we qualified now. It’s made it even tougher. But yeah, I mean, for us, we need to try to get points if we can get them but I mean, I wouldn’t say we’re in a must-win, but we got to go run up front all day long. So yeah, just we’re gonna need a little bit of luck. I think on our side, you know, Bristol, I think we were 11 out going in and we ended up 15. So, you know, I think we’re … 12 down or whatever it is right now. So it’s still a possibility. But yeah, we just have to be 100%. I mean, if we’re at 95% it’s not gonna get the job done.”
Defending champion Kyle Larson enters Sunday’s race sixth in the standings, 18 points to the good on Sunday but qualified just behind Briscoe in 18th.
“Practice, I just felt extremely loose, no grip anywhere,” Larson said. “Just out of control and a lot of the same in qualifying. Just out of the track and honestly, though, the areas that I feel good is where I’m giving up time so just going too slow. So keep trying to plug away and fix the car a little bit and see if I can figure out things to do in the cockpit to go a bit faster and hit my marks better. I just, I’m slow so I’m trying to compensate and carry the car and then I make mistakes and it makes things worse. So frustrating Saturday, but hopefully we’re better tomorrow.”
Joe Gibbs Racing’s Denny Hamlin sits fourth up 21 points from elimination. But even he finds himself sweating understanding how his road races have gone in 2022 — underscored by a 24th-place qualifying effort on Saturday.
“Yeah, it’s about trying to get to a number, you know,” Hamlin said of his Sunday approach. “Trying to get to a point number that we feel comfortable with and, you know, you try to run all the simulations and models you can to figure out, you know, everyone’s history at the track, and what do you typically have to do. But ultimately, I’m gonna try to get the best finish possible. You know, if I can somehow get stage points — which certainly where we’re starting, it’s gonna be difficult — we’re going to do it. So whatever we have to do to try to scratch and claw, and certainly in the end of the day, it’s probably going to be pretty close.”