Posted on by Zack Albert

Here’s what’s happening in the world of NASCAR with Watkins Glen in the rearview and Bristol (Sat., 7 p.m. ET, USA) up next.

THE LINEUP

1️⃣ Denny Hamlin’s Bristol hot streak vs. his 2024 playoff cold spell; which prevails?

2️⃣ Buescher chalks one up for the non-playoff crowd; sizing up the on-deck spoilers

3️⃣ Deconstructing the last-lap bout for the ages at Watkins Glen

4️⃣ Seeds and signifiers: Where each season’s champion started their playoff quest

5️⃣ Catch the pack — news and notes from around the garage

Denny Hamlin's No. 11 Toyota in the upper groove at Bristol Motor Speedway
Meg Oliphant | Getty Images

1. Can a well-timed triple play save the day for Denny Hamlin?

The No. 11 team has ruled the last two races at Bristol Motor Speedway; a trifecta would shake off a surprising playoff deficit

It’s been a little more than a year since Denny Hamlin beat your favorite driver. All of them.

Since that dynamic display and those infamous post-race barbs, Hamlin’s hold on Bristol’s high-banked concrete has only gotten stronger. He enters Saturday’s Bass Pro Shops Night Race (7 p.m. ET, USA, NBC Sports App, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) with two consecutive wins in the Tennessee hills.

Turns out, Hamlin and the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota team are going to need some continuation of their solid performance markers to keep their hopes for the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs intact. Saturday’s 500-lapper is the finale of the postseason’s opening Round of 16, and four drivers will be eliminated from championship contention at the race’s conclusion.

Right now, Hamlin is one of those four on the outside of the playoff picture, sitting six points below the elimination divide after a significant sag in his results. A subpar 24th-place run in Atlanta’s postseason opener preceded last weekend’s crash-marred 23rd at Watkins Glen, and his average running position in those two races — 30.8 and 32.2, respectively — marked a personal low for any lead-lap finish in his career.

It’s all been a drastic turn for the veteran driver who led the Cup Series standings through the middle sections of the regular season, but one who was happy to put a drafting-style track and a rambunctious road course behind him.

“I feel like we can go there and win,” Hamlin said, with eyes sharpened on Bristol. “We are going to an oval, back to a normal track. We can control our own destiny there.”

Win streak notwithstanding, the playoff deficit of six points doesn’t strike Hamlin or No. 11 crew chief Chris Gabehart as particularly steep. Gabehart reminded Hamlin of that in a post-race radio transmission, calling Bristol “our house,” and Hamlin didn’t dispute that the margin was a manageable one: “If you run in the top two or three all day, absolutely.” There’s also recent precedent for surmounting such a playoff gap within the Toyota camp; just last year, 23XI Racing’s Bubba Wallace escaped from a 19-point deficit to advance to the Round of 12 in last year’s night race.

The last time a driver won three consecutive races at Bristol came 20 years ago, when Kurt Busch swept the 2003 season there and tacked on a springtime victory the next year. Hamlin isn’t facing a must-win spot this time around, but pulling another sword from the stone in Victory Lane would go a long way toward steadying the ship.

2. Postseason spoilers rise up for a round of redemption

Buescher’s triumphant day at Watkins Glen carried the banner for non-playoff drivers; more opportunities abound

The stakes for Cup Series drivers outside of the title-eligible playoff field of 16 may not have the same season-long ramifications. The importance, though, remains, as the tenor of Chris Buescher’s celebration last Sunday at Watkins Glen International suggested.

Buescher broke down the fundamentals of NASCAR’s postseason to some of its most basic terms, explaining how stock-car racing does the playoffs differently. An NFL team that doesn’t reach the playoff road to the Super Bowl might shift its focus to reserving tee times. In NASCAR, there’s still 10 weeks left for those outside the championship hunt to make a statement, much like Buescher did with his dazzling last-lap battle with road-race ace Shane van Gisbergen.

“We have this playoff format that starts, but nobody goes home,” Buescher said after his first win of the 2024 season. “We bring the same 36, 38 cars to the race track every week. We race the same drivers and teams every week no matter if there’s a playoff going on or not. Our sport is not like others in that sense. We’re here to race to win. We’re going to play spoiler as much as we can in the next seven or eight weeks coming up as well.”

Buescher has some familiarity with that role, winning Bristol’s night race in 2022 as non-playoff drivers made a stunning sweep of that year’s first-round victories. (Erik Jones at Darlington and Bubba Wallace at Kansas were the others.) Sunday at Watkins Glen, he led a top-five sweep of postseason outsiders on the results sheet.

Plenty of other drivers outside of the playoff picture have opportunities to follow that cue, but four in particular stick out:

  • Ross Chastain (17th in Cup Series standings): The Trackhouse Racing standout has won two races in each of the last two seasons, but his oh-so-close brushes with Victory Lane so far this year left him out of the playoff field. Chastain started from the pole and led a race-best 51 of 92 laps at Watkins Glen, and he played playoff spoiler in last year’s finale at Phoenix.
  • Bubba Wallace (19th): Each of Wallace’s two Cup Series victories have come in a spoiler role in consecutive years — Talladega in 2021 and Kansas in 2022. Both of those tracks are still to come in this year’s playoff schedule as Wallace aims to end a two-year winless drought that’s now 71 races long.
  • Kyle Busch (20th): The motivation is mega for Rowdy, who would reach 20 consecutive seasons with at least one win if he can break through in the final eight races. Busch closed the regular season on the verge of victory with back-to-back runner-up finishes, and he’s heading to Bristol where he leads all active drivers with eight career wins.
  • Michael McDowell (23rd): The 39-year-old McDowell has poured on the speed in qualifying this year, sealing the first five pole positions of his career and posting a personal-best average start of 13.3 for the season. McDowell is much improved at Bristol, but Talladega and the Charlotte Roval loom as places to wrap his Front Row Motorsports tenure with a W.
Ross Chastain's No. 1 Chevrolet works the turns at Bristol Motor Speedway
Meg Oliphant | Getty Images

3. Inside Buescher’s big move at The Glen

Go Inside the Race as crew chiefs Blickensderfer and Peterson dive into the data and footage of SVG’s fateful misstep.

4. What’s in a seed? Where champions have started their playoff quests

Since NASCAR began crowning Regular Season Champions in 2017, the top-seeded playoff driver has won the Cup Series title three times. Tyler Reddick — this year’s regular-season king — is aiming to make it four. In that seven-year span, here’s where each overall champion has started in the 16-driver field.

SeasonChampionSeeding
2017Martin Truex Jr.1
2018Joey Logano6
2019Kyle Busch1
2020Chase Elliott5
2021Kyle Larson1
2022Joey Logano2
2023Ryan Blaney12

5. Catch the pack — news and notes from around the garage

Power Rankings: Larson no lock as Round of 16 hits Bristol

Paint Scheme Preview: 2024 Bristol Night Race

NASCAR betting: 2024 Bristol Night Race odds

Fresh faces, familiar names on Bristol entry lists

Playoff Pulse: Few trending upward after Watkins Glen

A history of Cup Series Playoffs’ walk-off winners

Drivers below playoff elimination line to advance on points

Analysis: Chaos theme continues in opening round

Last-lap madness: Buescher-SVG battle one for the ages

@nascarcasm: Fake texts to Watkins Glen winner Chris Buescher

Updated championship odds after Watkins Glen

Crew rosters for Bristol

Denny Hamlin (11) and Kyle Larson lead the field to the green flag at Bristol Motor Speedway
Meg Oliphant | Getty Images
Posted on by Reid Spencer

JR Motorsports driver Sammy Smith and Big Machine Racing driver Parker Kligerman would like nothing better than for the status quo to hold firm in Friday night’s Food City 300 at Bristol Motor Speedway (7:30 p.m. ET on The CW, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

RELATED: Details on The CW coverage plan

Entering the cutoff race for the NASCAR Xfinity Series Playoffs, 10 drivers already are locked into the seven-event postseason.

The only scenario that could eliminate Kligerman, who is 85 points above the current elimination line, is a victory by a playoff-eligible driver below the cutoff combined with a loss of more than 42 net points to Smith.

Kligerman can clinch a playoff spot by scoring 14 points on Friday, no matter who wins the race.

Likewise, Smith has a commanding advantage for the final playoff spot, unless a playoff-eligible driver below him in the standings happens to win on Friday.

Smith leads Ryan Sieg by 43 points entering the first race to be broadcast by The CW, which subsequently will air all seven playoff races in the series in anticipation of next year’s full-season schedule.

RELATED: Xfinity Series schedule | Current standings

In two Xfinity starts at Bristol, Smith qualified sixth both times and posted finishes of 14th and ninth.

“I’m looking forward to running under the lights this Friday at Bristol as we contend for our position in the playoffs,” Smith said. “I’ve had good runs there in the past, and JRM has always brought strong cars there, so I’m excited to get there and close out the regular season on a high note.”

The Xfinity regular-season title is also up for grabs, though Justin Allgaier has a commanding 43-point lead over reigning series champion Cole Custer entering the race that will decide who earns the 15-playoff-point bonus.

Allgaier is the defending winner of the Food City 300. He’ll have a competitive teammate in his boss, Dale Earnhardt Jr., who will make his first start of the season on Friday. Earnhardt led 47 laps in last year’s Bristol race before exiting with ignition problems after 271 of 300 circuits.

Posted on by Reid Spencer

Little was decided in the Aug. 25 opener of the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Playoffs at The Milwaukee Mile, but the race for the title should take on more definition after Thursday night’s UNOH 200 Presented by Ohio Logistics at Bristol Motor Speedway (8 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

Non-playoff driver Layne Riggs won at Milwaukee, denying all 10 title contenders the prospect of advancing to the Round of 8 with a victory.

In addition, the two drivers who enter Friday’s race below the current cut line — defending series champion Ben Rhodes and Rajah Caruth — are well within sight of the positive side of the playoff bubble.

RELATED: Truck playoff standings | Bristol schedule

With the field set to be cut from 10 to eight drivers on Sept. 27 at Kansas, Rhodes and Caruth trail eighth-place Grant Enfinger by two points and four points, respectively.

In three Truck Series starts at Bristol, Caruth has two top 10s to his credit.

“The key to success at Bristol is precision,” Caruth said. “You have to be plugged in and remain aware of everything going on around you. It’s a super-fun race track, but you are going fast, there’s a lot of banking, it is tough to see, and things happen very quickly.

“I’ve raced pretty much everything there, from ARCA to Trucks to Xfinity. Hopefully, we can build off our past runs and punch our ticket to the next round of the playoffs.”

Series leader Christian Eckes (60 points above the current cutoff) won the spring race at Bristol. Fellow playoff driver Corey Heim is the defending winner of the UNOH 200.

Note: Connor Zilisch, who won his NASCAR Xfinity Series debut from the pole last Saturday at Watkins Glen, will make his third Truck start of the season in the No. 7 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet.

Posted on by Staff Report

Winchester Fair presented by USNE Power

Monadnock Speedway

  • Entry list
Car No. Driver Organization Crew Chief Chassis Sponsor
1 Patrick Emerling RGM AZ, LLC Dale Hedquist LFR Fleetworks, Inc
3 Tyler Rypkema Boehler’s Racing Equipment Greg Fournier Boehler Racing USNE; Northeast Drilling
15 Joey Cipriano III Fueled Up Motorsports Ryan Plourde FURY Race Cars Dependable Energy
16 Ron Silk Haydt Yannone Racing Phil Moran FURY Race Cars Blue Mountain Machine; Future Homes
17 Anthony Nocella Michele Davini Chris McTaggart LFR Xtreme Racing; Nocella Paving, Bells Septic
18 Kenneth Heagy Robert Pollifrone Greg Gorman FURY Race Cars Buoy One Restaurant & Seafood Market
19 Anthony Sesely Wanick Motorsports LLC James Archibald Troyer Franzosa Trucking Company; Karchner Logistics
21 Stephen Kopcik Wanick Motorsports LLC TBA Troyer Newtown Pools; Karchner Warehousing
22 Kyle Bonsignore Kyle Bonsignore Cam McDermott FURY Race Cars Chalew Performance; MTT; Munns Auto
43 Matt Kimball William Kimball Jr. William Kimball Jr. LFR J&M Towing and Recovery; Poodiack Wealth Management; Central Mass Tree
46 Craig Lutz Goodie Racing Douglas Ogiejko FURY Race Cars Riverhead Building Supply
51 Justin Bonsignore Kenneth Massa Motorsports, LLC Ryan Stone FURY Race Cars Phoenix Communications, Inc.
54 Tommy Catalano Catalano Motorsports Rick Kluth Troyer Catalano Motorsports
56 Trevor Catalano Catalano Motorsports David Catalano Troyer Catalano Motorsports
60 Matt Hirschman Pee Dee Motorsports LLC Mike Stein LFR Elite
64 Austin Beers KLM Motorsports Ron Yuhas Troyer G&G Electrical Supply, Dell Electric. Lumiere Electrical, Andrew James Interiors, AP Marquadt & Sons, Hughes Motors
79 Jonathan McKennedy Jonathan McKennedy John Lowinski FURY Race Cars Jon McKennedy Racing
82 Woody Pitkat DWR Racing Corp. Nick Walsh LFR Gunsmoke Stables Racing , Horton Avenue Materials
84 Tyler Catalano Catalano Motorsports JJ Vece Troyer Catalano Motorsports
110 Bob Reis Reis Racing Gary Nye Troyer Ironlisting.com; B.R. Machineworks; Sterling Lubricants; Simpson Safety; Kluth
181 Nathan Wenzel Keri-Ann Wenzel Edward Kennedy Troyer 1812 Paint & Auto Body; Gene’s Ford & Chevrolet Service

 

Posted on by Staff Report

Bubba Wallace signed a multiyear extension with 23XI Racing, the team announced Wednesday.

Wallace, a two-time winner in the NASCAR Cup Series, will continue to drive the No. 23 Toyota for the organization. The Alabama native is in the midst of his seventh full-time season at the Cup level and fourth with 23XI.

Wallace, 30, was the first driver signed by team co-owners Denny Hamlin and Michael Jordan, the basketball legend who expanded to motorsports in an ownership role after years of fandom from afar. Wallace brought the program its first victory at Talladega Superspeedway in the fall of 2021, then won again the following year at Kansas Speedway.

Ahead of this week’s race at Bristol Motor Speedway, Wallace sits 19th in the series standings with five top fives and 10 top 10s in 28 races. His 2024 numbers reflect a 14.3 average start and 16.3 average finish.

Last season marked Wallace’s first winless campaign since 2020, but 2023 also brought Wallace his best overall numbers, improving his averages significantly while advancing to the NASCAR Playoffs for the first time in his career, ultimately ranking 10th in the final rundown.

In addition to his Cup success, Wallace has six career victories in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series and six wins in ARCA East competition, finishing runner-up in the 2011 championship standings.

Posted on by Staff Report

Big Machine Racing announced Wednesday that Nick Sanchez will drive the team’s No. 48 Chevrolet in the NASCAR Xfinity Series next season.

The 23-year-old driver will make the jump from the Craftsman Truck Series, where he is in his second season of competition with Rev Racing. The Miami native has won twice in the Truck Series this year and is the 2022 ARCA Menards Series champion.

Sanchez will replace Parker Kligerman, who announced last week that he would not return to the No. 48 Chevy next year. Kligerman has driven full-time for Big Machine since 2023 and has virtually clinched his second straight berth in the Xfinity Series Playoffs.

“This is a huge opportunity for me,” Sanchez said Wednesday in a virtual conference. “When I look at the [Xfinity] schedule and when I look at the places I need to improve as a driver, I think it just offers more for me. I’m excited to get to the race track next year and try to collect trophies for Scott and the whole team. This team has everything to be successful. I look forward to plugging into the team and chasing trophies.”

It will mark a reunion for Sanchez with the Scott Borchetta-owned organization, which tapped him for six races in the No. 48 ride during the 2022 campaign. That stint yielded a best finish of seventh in the next-to-last race of the season at Martinsville Speedway that fall.

Big Machine also indicated that Patrick Donahue would return as the team’s crew chief, and that Gainbridge would join the organization’s group of partners as an associate sponsor.

“In 2022 we put Nick in our car for a handful of races and he was fast right out of the gate,” Borchetta said in a team release. “At Martinsville in particular, I watched him go full-on, elbows-out, putting the car right where it needed to be, with no fear against the best-of-the-best in the series. Since then, he’s done a fantastic job in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, and I know that he and crew chief Patrick Donahue and the entire Big Machine Racing Team are going to be a force to be reckoned with in 2025.”

Both Sanchez and Big Machine have postseason aspirations to fulfill this year before their new partnerships begin. Sanchez is currently fourth in the Craftsman Truck Series Playoffs, heading to Thursday’s UNOH 200 (8 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN, SiriusXM) at Bristol Motor Speedway with a 34-point margin above the provisional elimination line with two races left in the Round of 10. Kligerman sits plus-85 above elimination ahead of Friday’s Food City 300 (7:30 p.m. ET, CW, PRN, SiriusXM), the regular-season finale at the 0.533-mile Bristol track.

The Big Machine organization has been in operation since the 2021 season. Cup Series regular Tyler Reddick secured the No. 48 team’s lone victory the following season, prevailing at Texas Motor Speedway.

Posted on by Brandon White

The NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour will make its third and final stop at Monadnock Speedway this season with Saturday night’s running of the Winchester Fair presented by USNE.

Having been a part of the Modified Tour schedule for different stretches in the 1980s and 2010s, Monadnock became a staple of the series during the 2020s. The 2024 season marks the first time the facility has three races on the calendar after previously hosting two in 2023.

As part of the track’s increased number of events, JDV Productions founder and Monadnock track promoter Josh Vanada moved the Whelen Granite State Short Track Cup to the facility. More than $20,000 in bonus money has been available to Modified Tour drivers at Monadnock this year, with $6,000 being distributed to the top three in points.

With one race remaining, the Whelen Granite State Short Track Cup championship is still up for grabs. The top seven in the point standings are separated by single digits, which primarily consists of seasoned Modified competitors looking for crucial momentum to close out 2024.

Tickets for the Winchester Fair presented by USNE can be purchased here. Below is everything to know ahead of the Whelen Granite State Short Track Cup finale.

Patrick Emerling
Patrick Emerling enters Saturday’s Winchester Fair at Monadnock Speedway with a three-point lead in the Whelen Granite State Short Track Cup. (Photo: Jaiden Tripi/NASCAR)

Winchester Fair presented by USNE

Although he trails Justin Bonsignore and Ron Silk in the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour championship standings, Patrick Emerling sits atop the Whelen Granite State Short Track cup points by a narrow margin.

A two-time winner on the Modified Tour this year, consecutive third-place finishes at the prior Monadnock Speedway events enabled Emerling to secure the points lead in the Whelen Granite State Short Track Cup. Those performances are Emerling’s best across 10 career starts at Monadnock.

Emerling will have to fend off several other talented drivers to close out the Whelen Granite State Short Track cup title. This includes Matt Hirschman, who only trails Emerling by three points and is still searching for his first Modified Tour victory at Monadnock despite never finishing outside the top 10 at the New Hampshire track.

Silk (-4) and Bonsignore (-8) also remain within striking distance of Emerling’s advantage. Silk himself has never visited Monadnock’s Victory Lane, but Bonsignore boasts the best track record of any Modified Tour competitor at the complex with five victories on his resume.

A potential underdog contender for the Whelen Granite State Short Track Cup is Trevor Catalano, who picked up his first NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour victory during the most recent trip to Monadnock. The triumph put Catalano nine points back from Emerling, but he has not recorded another top-five since then.

Austin Beers (-6) and Craig Lutz (-8) are also in contention for the Whelen Granite State Short Track Cup title. They will be joined in the field by Jon McKennedy, Woody Pitkat, Stephen Kopcik, Anthony Nocella and Matt Kimball, among others.

The complete entry list for the Winchester Fair presented by USNE can be viewed here.

Monadnock Speedway
Jake Johnson (3) and Trevor Catalano (56) won the other two events at Monadnock Speedway that comprised the Whelen Granite State Short Track Cup. (Photo: Jaiden Tripi/NASCAR)

RACING REFERENCE:

RACE FACTS

Race Winchester Fair presented by USNE
Date Saturday, September 21, 2024
Track Monadnock Speedway
Layout 0.25-mile asphalt oval
Location Winchester, New Hampshire
Start time 6 p.m. ET
Laps 200
Posted Awards $85,234
Tickets Here
How To Watch FloRacing

SCHEDULE: Saturday, September 21… Final practice from 1:15 p.m. to 2 p.m. ET … Qualifying at 4:15 p.m. ET … Winchester Fair presented by USNE at 6 p.m. ET (FloRacing).

RE-DRAW PROCEDURE: The fastest qualifier will draw a pill to determine the number of drivers that will re-draw for their starting positions: 4, 6, 8 or 10 positions will re-draw. Once the fastest qualifier draws the initial pill, NASCAR will have the various buckets ready to immediately start the re-draw procedure. Drivers will re-draw in their qualifying order after qualifying has been completed (1 through 10, or however many are applicable). The pole position and/or any bonus point(s), if applicable, will be awarded to the fastest qualifier and will be the pole of record.

QUALIFYING: Two consecutive qualifying laps. Faster lap determines qualifying position. Adjustments or repairs may not be made on the vehicle after the vehicle has taken the green flag at the start/finish line. NASCAR reserves the right to have more than one vehicle engage in qualifying runs at the same time. Starting field for the 2nd Annual Winchester Fair presented by USNE Power is limited to 28 starters including Provisional Positions.

TIRE ALLOTMENT: The maximum tire allotment available for this event is eight (8) tires per team. All tires used for qualifying and the race must be purchased at the track and scanned by Hoosier, unless otherwise approved in advance by the Series director. Four (4) tires must be used for qualifying and to begin the race. All qualifying tires must remain in impound until released by NASCAR officials. The remaining tire allotment may be used for practice and/or change tires during the event. The tire change rule is one (1) tire per caution.

Posted on by Staff Report

The NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series and Xfinity Series will each feature fun names behind the wheel at Bristol Motor Speedway.

Rising sprint-car star Corey Day will make his NASCAR national series debut in the Truck Series’ Thursday night feature at the 0.533-mile high-banked short track driving the No. 81 Chevrolet for McAnally-Hilgemann Racing, his first of four races scheduled for 2024. Joining him will be Connor Zilisch, the 18-year-old sensation who won last weekend’s Xfinity Series race at Watkins Glen International in his debut start. Zilisch will drive the No. 7 Chevrolet for Spire Motorsports Thursday night in his third series start.

RELATED: Full Truck Series entry list | Xfinity Series entry list

William Sawalich, the 17-year-old defending ARCA Menards Series East champion and a seven-time ARCA winner in 2024, will make his fifth start of the year in Tricon Garage’s No. 1 Toyota on Thursday night, eyeing his first top-10 finish of 2024. Marco Andretti, a two-time winner in IndyCar competition, will make his seventh career start in the Truck Series Thursday in the No. 04 Chevrolet for Roper Racing in his fourth appearance of the season.

The UNOH 200 Presented by Ohio Logistics is set for Thursday at 8 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN Radio and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.

The Xfinity Series features a return for two-time champion Dale Earnhardt Jr., a Class of 2021 inductee of the NASCAR Hall of Fame. Friday’s 300-lapper marks Earnhardt’s lone race of the 2024 campaign. The 15-time most popular driver and 26-time winner in Cup competition returned to Bristol in 2023 and led 47 laps in a stellar showing before a mechanical issue ended his day in flames. Earnhardt will compete in the No. 88 Chevrolet for JR Motorsports.

MORE: Dale Jr. through the years

Also racing in Friday’s Xfinity event will be Jeffrey Earnhardt, Dale Jr.’s nephew, who will drive the No. 26 Toyota for Sam Hunt Racing in his fifth start of 2024.

The Food City 300 will fire off Friday at 7 p.m. ET on CW, PRN Radio and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.

MORE: Full Bristol weekend schedule

Posted on by John Crane

When the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series schedule was announced in October 2023, it didn’t take long for the 2024 Cup Series Playoffs docket — and in particular, the Round of 16 — to quickly draw attention.

Assumptions popped up almost immediately. Atlanta Motor Speedway, Watkins Glen International and Bristol Motor Speedway — a drafting-style track, road course and short track, respectively — were bound to keep 2024 title hopefuls on their toes and create a bounty of scenarios that could jumble the postseason in as many ways as could be imagined.

RELATED: Recap Watkins Glen playoff thriller | Race results

“The first round is the scariest it’s been in a long time,” Christopher Bell said during Cup Series Playoffs Media Day. “You know, with Atlanta, a superspeedway starting us off, we all know how that can go. And then we go to Watkins Glen, which should be a normal race track, but with the expected tire degradation with the tire change that we’ve had, I mean, it could be a Bristol-style race where people are wearing tires out really early and struggling to make laps and having to pit all the time. So that could be another wild-card race. And then Bristol, I think everybody’s expecting it to be more of the same as what we had in the spring. So, the first round could be very different than what we’ve seen in the past.”

Atlanta’s overtime fireworks, not to mention the unknowns of The Glen’s playoff debut, contributed to the fright. And in Watkins Glen’s case, a new tire compound prioritizing fall-off, combined with freshly recessed rumble strips, gave the entirety of the Cup field a different flavor than the road course had typically put forth during the circuit’s annual visit there. And with postseason implications now on the line, the tension was much more magnified.

And those tensions came to fruition, indeed. After the checkered flag waved in overtime, only two playoff drivers (Chase Briscoe and Austin Cindric) finished inside the top 10. High-profile names, including Brad Keselowski, Tyler Reddick, William Byron and 2023 Cup Series champion Ryan Blaney, finished outside the top 25. The rest of the postseason field finished anywhere from 12th (Kyle Larson) to 24th (Harrison Burton).

So, what happened?

Cautions, for one. An opening-lap wreck involving Blaney, Keselowski, Denny Hamlin and Christopher Bell — all playoff drivers — was the first of seven yellows during Sunday’s 92-lap affair. The crash proved terminal for Blaney, and the No. 12 Team Penske Ford finished last in the field. Hamlin and Keselowski, meanwhile, were caught up in additional incidents, with the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota spinning out through the esses during the race’s final stage; Keselowski tangled with William Byron (another playoff driver) in Turn 2 during the race’s waning moments. Hamlin and Keselowski finished 23rd and 26th, respectively.

Next was strategy … and miscues on pit road. The decision whether to pit before the stage end and restart at the front of the field to retain track position — known as “flipping” the stages — versus staying out to collect valuable stage points and trading away track position was more than apparent in conjunction with the race yellows. For playoff drivers, the goal was clear: collect points. Stage 1’s conclusion saw eight playoff drivers collect stage points, while seven postseason pilots tallied points following Stage 2’s end under caution.

But issues on pit road could flip everything on its side, and such was the case for Larson and Keselowski after penalties forced them to the rear, thus opening them up to the possibility of being caught up in traffic … and perhaps trouble.

WATKINS GLEN: Blaney out after Lap 1 damage | Hamlin below elimination line following wrecks

When combining yellows, strategy shifts and pit-road blunders, Watkins Glen’s chaos can be quantified in numerics. Twelve of the 16 playoff drivers were “involved” in at least one of the two problem areas in question, with only Briscoe, Cindric, Alex Bowman and Ty Gibbs coming out of The Glen’s contest cleanly.

Ultimately, the effect on the playoff standings was stark, indeed. Of the 12 drivers currently above the elimination line, Cindric (plus-43) was the biggest gainer, vaulting from seventh in the playoff standings to just three points behind Bell (plus-46) for first among postseason drivers yet to clinch. Following him is Bowman (plus-41), two points behind the No. 2 Team Penske Ford. Daniel Suárez (despite getting stuck in the gravel in Stage 2) is up next in the playoff table (plus-36), and while he might not be inside the top five, Briscoe’s 27-point gain saw the No. 14 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford leap from last in the playoff standings to 11th, six points clear of the elimination line with one Round of 16 race to go.

With the shift up top, two former Cup Series champions and a perennial title contender now find themselves underneath the elimination line, with Hamlin (minus-6), Keselowski (minus-12), Martin Truex Jr. (minus-14) and Burton (minus-20) on the outside looking in. And while anything can go in the playoffs, needing to perform extremely well to the point of finding Victory Lane might be the only course of action for these drivers to survive the Round of 16’s onslaught.

Chaos was the expectation for this year’s playoffs, and as a track new to the postseason, Watkins Glen didn’t fail to shift this year’s playoff grid tremendously. With different tires and configuration changes to boot, the New York road course proved that no driver is safe.

MORE: Cup Series standings | Cup Series schedule 

Saturday’s Round of 16 finale at Bristol Motor Speedway (7 p.m. ET, USA, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App) is sure to deliver after its spring running saw unique tire situations dictate the race’s outcome.

There’s no question how much the Round of 16 has already delivered in the playoff-shaking department. After what we’ve already seen at Atlanta and Watkins Glen, when looking ahead to the upcoming Bristol contest — expecting the unexpected should be a given.

Posted on by Dustin Albino

WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. — For the first time in the history of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs, no championship-eligible driver cracked the top five in the finishing order in Sunday’s Go Bowling at The Glen at Watkins Glen International. Best in class was Chase Briscoe, managing a sixth-place finish.

With an early departure from the playoff opener at Atlanta Motor Speedway, Briscoe needed a stellar performance at The Glen to give him a fighting chance going into the Round of 16 elimination race at Bristol Motor Speedway.

RELATED: Buescher shakes up playoff field with Watkins Glen win | Race results from Sunday

In a chaotic 92-lap overtime contest, few playoff drivers didn’t have some semblance of an issue. Briscoe was the lead playoff car for much of the race, though, finishing third to Martin Truex Jr. and Alex Bowman in the opening stage. After starting deep in the field for Stage 2, he hustled the No. 14 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford to seventh, tallying 12 stage points for the afternoon.

Playing a two-stop strategy, Briscoe hit pit road for the final time on Lap 57, along with race leaders Ross Chastain and Shane van Gisbergen. When the race cycled out, the No. 14 remained inside the top 10.

Multiple late cautions didn’t harm Briscoe. With a sixth-place finish, he tallied 43 points for his day of work, outscoring the other 15 playoff drivers by at least 10 points. (Austin Cindric scored the second-most points among playoff drivers with 33.) He leaped five positions in the standings, moving from 16th to a tie for 11th, with a 27-point swing from where he started the race.

“We did everything we needed to do,” Briscoe told NASCAR.com after the race. “We probably only gave up two or three points that we could have got. Really good day. To get the most points scored is what we needed to do out of all the playoff drivers. It was everything we needed.

“We just have to go on to Bristol and hopefully survive the chaos. If we can go and do what we did today, get stage points, qualify well, it makes your way of getting through to the next round much easier. Stage points are going to be the name of the game — always are — and we need to qualify really well. It’s going to be a big difference maker for Bristol, so we need to do that.”

Bristol has been hit or miss for Briscoe in four Cup attempts. He often qualifies well, which bodes well for scoring stage points. But he will likely need to better his average finishing position of 16.8 if he wants to advance to the next round.

Stewart-Haas Racing has had recent success at the track with Kevin Harvick. Aric Almirola won the pole in 2022, the same race Briscoe qualified on the front row.

MORE: Cup Series standings | Cup Series schedule

That leaves Briscoe confident heading to Thunder Valley on Saturday, where the postseason field will officially be trimmed from 16 to 12 playoff drivers (7:30 p.m. ET, USA, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App).

Briscoe expects chaos, similar to Watkins Glen. Only two playoff drivers managed top-10 finishes on Sunday, with half of the 16 drivers finishing 20th or worse.

“I feel like that’s one of our best tracks as a company,” Briscoe said. “It’s hard to know what Bristol race we’re going to have. Are we going to have one like the spring, or are we going to have one like we typically do? I feel good about it either way.”