Here we go again.
After a wildly unpredictable first round of the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs, one that featured a superspeedway, road course and short track, comes the second round that features a superspeedway, road course and intermediate.
There is once again the potential for the same randomness and maybe more as Kansas Speedway has proven to be just as chaotic as Talladega and the Charlotte Roval. The only difference, of course, is that the margins of error are even tighter for those who advanced.
In winning the Bristol Night Race on Saturday night, Kyle Larson actually improved on his margin of error and has at least one mulligan in him over this round should something bad happen over the next three races.
Larson, who won at Kansas in the spring, is relieved that this race is first because he can add to that points advantage early instead of having to play from behind, a lot like Denny Hamlin and Chase Briscoe had to in the first round.
“It’s like, okay, if I can go to Kansas and do a really good job and get good stage points, get a good finish, you have a little bit more comfort going to Talladega rather than Atlanta,” Larson said. “You finish dead last and it’s like, you’re kind of stressed the whole time.
“So, I don’t know, it’s constructed similarly but different. The Roval to me, I’ve had a lot of stressful moments there throughout my playoff career,” including being eliminated in 2022, by one point, by the way.
“Hopefully we’re in a better position once we get there and can have less stress because it’s pretty stressful,” Larson said. “It’s more stressful than Talladega for sure.”
Joey Logano, who by virtue of winning the playoff opener at Atlanta, knows the value of continuing to win once the gauntlet begins because that is the difference between him start this round four above the cutline or one under.
His victory at Atlanta also made him immune to the chaos that unfolded around him but he is very aware of what this second round looks like too.
“It definitely looks like a replay, different but similar, with Kansas being the not wild card race of the three, but it actually still in a lot of ways is,” Logano said. “Hopefully we can get to Kansas and have a solid run.
“That’s what we need, score some points, and put ourselves in a good spot to get through Talladega and the Roval. It’s one race at a time. It’s nice that we’ve had three weeks to think about Kansas now and hopefully that means something.”
Hamlin suffered some self inflicted wounds in that first round, from choosing a passive strategy at Atlanta that led to him crashing at the end without scoring any stage points and qualifying poorly at Watkins Glen that led to a fist lap stack-up.
There are a lot of reasons to see parallels that could scare Hamlin, even at seven points above the cut.
“Yes and no,” Hamlin said. “I’m certainly going to be more aggressive and do everything I can to score more points in this superspeedway race but the Roval, I don’t know, that race seems to come down to qualifying but we need to see where we’re at after the first race.
“Overall, this round is very similar but we can’t run these any worse than we just ran these and we advanced.”
Chris Gabehart, through a conversation with RACER.com, issued a reminder that the Roval is potentially more treacherous this round too.
“We’re going to go [to] whatever the Smith family has dreamed up for the Roval next and race our (butts) off,” Gabehart said.
In speaking to Sportsnaut, Gabehart said this second round ‘certainly is’ the same as the first.
“For the 11, at least as Talladega is concerned, we’ll have a different approach,” Gabehart said. “We haven’t finished any speedway races good and it’s been because we were wrecked not of our own accord in each of them. That could easily happen this time too.
“But the difference, this time, I’ll say is that the round opens with the performance race based and not closes with it the way this round did. Kansas is one of our very best tracks, right there with Bristol and Richmond, but it’s also one of Larson’s best and I fully expect a war and I’m looking forward to it.”
And while some might lament the randomness of the race tracks NASCAR selected, Austin Cindric, another feel good advancement story into this second round says this is just reflective of the Cup Series schedule.
“To be a NASCAR Cup Series champion, you have to excel at every type of race track and be able to get through all types of race tracks,” Cindric said. “These first two rounds are definitely really challenging in terms of the disciplines you have to get through.”