Top-seeded Kyle Larson expects shake-ups in the NASCAR Cup Playoffs

With the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs beginning this weekend in Sunday’s Quaker State 400 Available at Walmart at Atlanta Motor Speedway (3 p.m. ET on USA Network, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), the 16 drivers who have qualified to compete for the 2024 championship met with the media Wednesday at the Charlotte Convention Center to share their expectations and hopes for this elimination-style championship run.

Hendrick Motorsports driver Kyle Larson, the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series champion and current reseeded points leader, said he didn’t necessarily see a specific “driver to beat” among the competitors.

Furthermore, the 30-year-old Californian, who leads the series with four wins this season, said he fully expects a “dark horse” to advance at least out of the first three-race round featuring races at Atlanta, the Watkins Glen, N.Y. road course next week and the famed Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway half-miler on Sept. 21.

“You definitely have favorites and guys who are really fast every week, but it’s NASCAR and NextGen racing,” Larson said. “It’s always crazy, and there’s always a couple heavy (favorite) guys that get knocked out somewhat early that could very well be deserving champions.

“So, it’s hard to predict who’s going to be in the final four. There’s definitely some good teams that have the best shot currently, but a lot of stuff can happen and there’s usually a team or two that turns things up a lot in the Playoffs and executes really well and makes it pretty far—maybe not the final four, but pretty far.”

One of Larson’s season-long primary challengers is 23XI Racing’s Tyler Reddick, who claimed the Regular Season Championship Sunday night in Darlington by a single point over Larson, despite battling through severe nausea throughout the grueling 500-mile race.

Reddick said Wednesday that despite how sick he felt, he never planned to get out of the car mid-race.

“Someone would have had to pull me out,” he asserted.

As with Larson, Reddick said he doesn’t expect his team’s approach to change whether they are considered championship favorites or not. But two-race winner and newly-crowned Regular Season Champion Reddick is considered a Championship 4- worthy competitor.

“Maybe the numbers show that, but I don’t think we’re carrying ourselves around like we’re the baddest group around; we just do a good job of each individual on the team doing their part during the week,” Reddick said. “We just show up to the race track and have a good amount of focus and do a really good job of just getting the results we need, even on the days we have issues.

“That’s been the nice thing about this year, a number of times—countless times it feels like—we’ve had things not go our way, but we’ve been able to fight through it and still get the results.”

He added, “There’s really no reason to change up what you’ve been doing all year. That’s when you get yourself in trouble.”

Larson has won at eight of the 10 Playoff tracks, accounting for 12 of his 27 career wins. Fellow Californian, Reddick has two of his seven career wins at Playoff tracks, including Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway earlier this year.

Christopher Bell enters NASCAR Cup Playoffs in enviable position

Christopher Bell, who qualified for the Championship 4 race in 2022 and 2023, has been consistently fast at Phoenix, site of the season finale.

In fact, he’s the winner of the most recent event at the one-mile track in the Sonoran Desert, having taken the checkered flag on March 10.

In 2022, Bell was seeded 10th entering the Playoffs, with 11 Playoff points to his credit. A year later, he was the No. 7 seed, with 14 Playoff points. He finished third and fourth, respectively, in the final standings.

This year is different. The driver of the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota has more of a safety net. With three Cup victories, 10 stage wins and a fourth-place finish in the regular-season standings, Bell starts the 2024 Playoffs as the No. 2 seed, with a cushion of 32 Playoff points.

“We’ve got a little bit more wiggle room than we did the last couple years,” Bell said on Wednesday at NASCAR Cup Series Media Day at the Charlotte Convention Center. “Our path is definitely a lot different this year than what we’ve had the last couple of years because of our seeding position, the Playoff points that we have.

“So hopefully, our path is much different. In 2022, I had to win (to make the Championship 4). In 2023, I basically had to win, and now we’re in a position where we might not have to win.”

Bell thrives on pressure. A premier dirt-track racer, he won three straight Chili Bowl Nationals titles in midget race cars. The Chili Bowl in Tulsa, Oklahoma, is a week-long pressure cooker where the winner emerges from a field of roughly 350 drivers.

“Growing up, that was the most pressure in that (preliminary) heat race,” Bell said of his experience at the Tulsa Expo. “The heat race might be the Round of 16 or the Round of 12. The feature is the championship race.

“Just the duration of nerves and intensity is a little bit longer with this (Playoff), but I feed off of it.”

Denny Hamlin has obstacles to overcome during possible run to Cup title

Only a month ago, Joe Gibbs Racing driver Denny Hamlin was in position to challenge for the Regular Season Championship, but a penalty he and the team received two weeks ago for a Toyota self-reported error—which included the loss of 75 championship points and 10 playoff points—has put the No. 11 JGR Toyota group in a rally mode as the 10-race championship portion of the season begins this week.

A three-time winner this season, Hamlin goes into the Playoffs ranked sixth, 25 points behind leader Larson.

Still racing for his first NASCAR Cup Series championship in an otherwise highly-decorated 54-win, 20-year career, Hamlin said Wednesday a title in 2024 would be the quintessential capstone, especially considering the challenging circumstances he’s faced.

“I think it will if it has a positive outcome,” Hamlin said of rebounding from the penalty during this championship run. “I can’t honestly say it’s something we rallied around. I mean, certainly it took away 15 points and when you add it all up in the regular season, 15 points every round we lost, that’s really hard to overcome, but we can.

“We can and that’s the good news. … if we can get through these first two or three rounds and have a shot at Phoenix, then that’s going to be a very rewarding feeling. If there’s ever a year to win it, do it when there’s the most adversity on the line.”

Hamlin has won races at nine of the 10 current Playoff tracks. The Charlotte ROVAL, which has only been on the scheduled for six years, is the only Playoff venue where he hasn’t hoisted a trophy.

“What I love about our team is I feel like I have one of the best crew chiefs, the best teams in the garage, and there’s only two to three of us that knows they can win every single week they hit the track and we are one of them,” Hamlin said.

“If I could make it to the Championship 4 this year with all the variables that got thrown our way, it will be one of the more rewarding accomplishments of my career.”

It’s an even-numbered year, so don’t overlook Joey Logano

Call it coincidence, but Team Penske driver Joey Logano has advanced to the Championship 4 race five times—all in even-number years, starting with the introduction of the elimination format into the NASCAR Cup Series in 2014.

Kyle Busch and Logano are the only full-time active drivers with more than one Cup title (two each). Logano triumphed in 2018 and 2022.

“It’s ironic that’s how it worked out,” Logano said during Wednesday’s NASCAR Cup Series Playoff Media Day at the Charlotte Convention Center. “But this year I’ll say I’m superstitious. Does that sound good? Next year I won’t.

“I’m pretty basic and maybe more factual about things than that stuff. That stuff can get in your head more than anything. So, I’ll go do my thing, and if it works out like that, we’ll have a cool story to talk about again.”

In 2022, Logano entered the postseason as the second seed, with 25 Playoff points. This year he’s seeded ninth with just seven Playoff points and a much smaller margin for error. Nevertheless, Logano’s says his approach to the Playoffs won’t change, at least initially.

“It doesn’t right now,” Logano said. “It can change (later), because you’re just in a different spot, but the first race of each round I always look at as maybe the most important race of each round, because it sets you up.

“How we get out of Atlanta (the first Playoff race) will adjust how we go to Watkins Glen and the approach of how we get through the race. It’s one race at a time. Is it nice to have more Playoff points? Absolutely. Can we win from where we’re at? Absolutely, we can win from where we’re at.

“We can do that for sure, but it’s just a more challenging position.”

Defending champ Ryan Blaney wants his team to be scary-good in Playoffs

Reigning NASCAR Cup Series champion Ryan Blaney comes into this year’s Playoff primed to defend his title, and the driver of the No. 12 Team Penske Ford likes his chances.

Blaney has two wins already this season (at Iowa and Pocono, Pa.) and heads into this 10-race title run ranked fifth in standings. His wrist was still sore for a couple days after a lap-three accident last weekend at Darlington abruptly ended his regular season, but Blaney says he isn’t in any pain now.

As the champion, Blaney is the current Playoff standard-bearer, driving for the team others are hoping to dethrone. Hendrick Motorsports’ Jimmie Johnson is the last driver to win consecutive titles, a feat only two drivers have accomplished in the last 30 years—NASCAR Hall of Famers Johnson 2006-10 and Jeff Gordon 1997-98.

“I don’t think so,” Blaney said of having the proverbial “bullseye” on his back. “I have gotten wrecked a lot this year, more than other years, so I don’t know if that means I have a bullseye (smiling).

“I feel like we’ve taken it as, my group, we’ve got to defend our championship,” Blaney continued. “We’re still in title defense. Until the year’s over, you’re still in title defense, so I think that’s motivated us a lot. Everyone’s kind of gunning for you and that goes to the crew guys and the pit crew guys, engineers and (crew chief) Jonathan (Hassler) because everyone’s kind of envious of where you’re at.”

In Blaney’s view, that’s not a bad thing.

“I think that really motivates us that everyone’s looking at you, not scared of you, but they know how good of a team this team is,” he acknowledged. “And that’s what I’ve told my guys, I want to scare every other team. I want you guys to be so good that every other team is nervous about us when we unload, and that’s kind of the mindset we’ve tried to have.

“I think it’s a great mindset for everyone on the team to have. You want everyone worrying about you because you can be that dangerous. I think we definitely are, and hopefully that carries over.”

Underdog Chase Briscoe likes his position in Cup Playoff battle

Contrast Chase Briscoe with William Byron, who knew he would be competing in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs when he won the Daytona 500 in February.

Briscoe, on the other hand, wasn’t Playoff-bound until he pulled off an upset in last Sunday’s Cook Out Southern 500. The victory at Darlington Raceway was Briscoe’s first since he won at Phoenix in March 2022.

Now Briscoe and his No. 14 Stewart-Haas Racing team must shift into Playoff mode, after securing their spot at roughly 10 p.m. on Sunday night. Briscoe is the only SHR driver to qualify for the Playoffs in the organization’s last year of operation.

“We’re going every week to win races, so our car preparation doesn’t necessarily change,” Briscoe said. “Our attention to detail doesn’t necessarily change. But I think the mentality changes a little bit.

“And even our race team—we’re in a little bit different situation. Penske’s got to worry about four race cars. Hendrick, Gibbs—they all have to worry about four cars. I’m in a really good spot. We have a four-car team, but really, all the focus is on me for the rest of the year.

“For us, I do think that makes it a little bit easier to just put all the eggs in one basket, and hopefully, that’ll pay off for us.”

Despite his Johnny-come-lately status, Briscoe doesn’t think a championship is out of the question before he transitions to Joe Gibb Racing next year.

“It’d be pretty dang cool—I know that,” Briscoe said. “I can’t think of a better way to end the story that Stewart-Haas Racing has written.”

— NASCAR Wire Service —