The upcoming first round of the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs were designed with one purpose in mind.
Chaos.
It begins on Sunday at Atlanta Motor Speedway, which is in its third year as a reconfigured diet superspeedway, producing a sort of hybrid between Daytona and Talladega style racing and traditional intermediate competition.
“It’s very much turned into a speedway race since the repave,” said Chase Elliott. “It’s craziness and wild and everyone knows it.”
The round continues at Watkins Glen, which is expected to feature the debut of a new road course tire intended to fall off over three seconds during the course of a run before ending with the Bristol Night Race, which is a complete unknown after what happened to Goodyear during the spring race.
“Yeah, the Watkins Glen thing is interesting because they said it was six seconds, and then they tested again last week and I heard two seconds,” said Alex Bowman. “Yeah, I heard much less than we thought, but it’ll be interesting to see what actually happens.
“I feel like we always kind of never know. And then at Bristol, is the same thing going to happen or is it not going to happen? Yeah, it’s going to be interesting. Atlanta, it’s its own thing, so we’ll what happens.”
Christopher Bell, who has made the final four in each of the past two years, called it ‘the scariest it has been in a long time,’ due to the tracks added to it.
The defending champion, Ryan Blaney, is certainly a little on edge about it.
“That first round is going to be an oddball right, and I do think there will be some surprises that get eliminated because Atlanta, Watkins Glen and someone will need to throw a Hail Mary at Bristol,” Blaney said.
“Hopefully we’re not one of those people but you just never know. It can happen.”
Denny Hamlin, who already finds himself narrowly above the cutline very well anticipates he might have to prepare himself for such a Hail Mary at Bristol.
“Yeah, absolutely,” Hamlin said. “Certainly, with a new road course in there in Watkins Glen in the Playoffs, with an unknown tire. Atlanta – who knows. I haven’t finished a superspeedway NextGen race I don’t think in my entire career.
“It’s just who knows what can happen. We might have to go to Bristol and win but if that’s the case, we will.”
Hamlin won that unpredictable race last year, one that saw extreme tire wear, a very slow pace, but also a record number of passes for any race that wasn’t on a superspeedway in NASCAR history.
Brad Keselowski called this first round ‘a big wild card’ for all the aforementioned reasons.
“Atlanta replaces Darlington, which was the first race last year, and that is like a known entity, right,” Keselowski said. “Everyone knew going into that race what to expect.
“Atlanta not so much. There are a lot, lot, lot more unknowns and I think it changes the complexion of the first round of the playoffs. That first week especially is really important because it sets the tone for how the next two could go.
“It’s really hard to dig out of a hole, traditionally.”
That is even enough to make the top seeded contender, and 2021 Cup Series champion Kyle Larson a little edgy, because those bad days can compound in a hurry as was the case last year with top-ranked Martin Truex Jr.
Truex rallied, but he entered the final race of the first round below the cutline, and only advanced to the second round because then defending champion Joey Logano crashed out at Bristol.
“Yeah, I don’t love seeing Atlanta in the playoffs at all,” Larson said. “And even Watkins Glen for that matter, just because while I like those tracks, they’re just sketchy places.
“But if they’re going to be in the playoffs, I would rather them be in the first round than the second or third round. So yeah, I mean I think having the bonus points and playoff points that we’ve earned throughout the regular season is nice. But it still doesn’t guarantee anything. You still have to not run into any trouble, especially in back-to-back weeks, and hopefully you can just make it through.”
The fact these races are in the first round is also a double-edged sword for teams that otherwise haven’t showed the speed needed to compete for wins over the course of the regular season. Daniel Suarez won his only race of the season at Atlanta in the spring and Harrison Burton finished fifth in the fall race there last year.
Alex Bowman’s only win of the season came on a road course and Bristol’s tire conservation race also gave him a top-5, a race that also saw Ty Gibbs and Chase Briscoe contend at points.
Briscoe’s dad, former Sprint Car ace Kevin, has already done what his counterpart, Dave Blaney, did for his son last year and verbally motivated him with a path to win the championship.
“He says, Chase, you can win this championship,” he said.
“I feel like, if you look at my states since making it to NASCAR, these 10 tracks are some of my best tracks,” Briscoe said. “Even this year, I don’t even know that we have to win because from fifth to dead last right now is five points and if you just win a race, you go from seeded 12th to seventh, and I think we can do it and get there, and it’s just a matter of not eliminating ourselves.”
In other words, if something bad does happen to a Hamlin and Blaney in this first round, a bad result or two and the likes of Briscoe, Bowman and Harrison Burton simply finish, top-20s could even be enough.
It’s chaotic but Brad Keselowski says that’s the fun of this format even if he were watching from afar and filling out his own March Madness style playoff bracket.
“There’s no way you’re getting this right,” Keselowski said. “Like last year, just five percent of them were right or something after the first round. It was ridiculous. So I expect the same thing this year.”
And for those that do advance to the second round, they can expect to do it all over again with a trio of races that include Kansas, now the wildest intermediate on the schedule, another superspeedway in Talladega and a radically redesigned Charlotte ROVAL.
“The first one is going to be very – it’s very unnerving for sure, and then the second round too, that has been the scary round with Talladega mixed in there,” Bell said. “But I think the Round of 16 and the Round of 12 are going to be the ones that you feel a little bit handcuffed at.
“Then, if you’re fortunate to make it to the Round of 8, then it’s off of performance and you can just go out there and lay it on the table.”