“It doesn’t get any easier from here.”
That’s what Chris Buescher says he’s been told to expect by those around him over his debut appearance in the Round of 12 following his sole previous playoff appearance in 2016 when he was amongst the first four eliminated.
To wit, those who had a bit of a buffer to the cutline in the Round of 16 are now below it in the Round of 12. The process gets even stiffer for those who survive to the Round of 8. That’s just how it works in the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs.
“The first round, I won’t say we thought it would be easy but certainly didn’t feel like it was going to be a real challenge for us,” Buescher said. “Then Kansas really threw a curveball at us and got us way less comfortable than we wanted to be heading into Bristol.
“Anything like that can happen, and we know that, but I think that is what the advice has been. Just knowing that you are going to stay after it and no part of this is going to get any easier along the way.”
The margin of error gets tighter and tighter through each round.
For example, what happened to Martin Truex Jr. in the first round, a Murphy’s Law of circumstances only mitigated by his regular season success would absolutely result in his elimination should it happen again.
And, oh by the way, this round has two wild card races of sorts in Talladega Superspeedway and the Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL after the opener at Texas Motor Speedway. Kyle Larson is feeling confident and is a threat to make the final four but knows Truex is a lesson for his team over the next three races.
“Texas is a good race for us so hopefully we can put one together because anything can happen at Talladega,” Larson said. “So at least have a good Texas to pad any issues we might have. Our team has done a great job to start these playoffs.
“Us and (Denny Hamlin) have been the best teams, so I just hope we can continue that. If we can win, that’s obviously what you want, but we’ll take a good points day too.”
Updated playoff grid
William Byron +25
Martin Truex Jr +25
Denny Hamlin +21
Kyle Larson +12
Chris Buescher +10
Kyle Busch +8
Christopher Bell +5
Tyler Reddick +3
—
Ross Chastain -3
Brad Keselowski -3
Ryan Blaney -6
Bubba Wallace -14
Bubba Wallace knows the narrative about his team, that he isn’t supposed to be here, according to all the pundits, most of whom expected his elimination after Bristol. He says he is trying his damnedest to block out the prognosticators.
“You can’t chase that stuff too much,” Wallace said. “That is where I’ve gotten caught up in years past, trying to prove the doubters wrong and not racing for yourself or the team. When you race for yourself and for the team, those other things kind of fall into place.”
Wallace just overcame the second-largest single-race points deficit to advance on points during an elimination race so what is 14 below with three races left to make up ground?
“We got to keep fighting,” Wallace said. “The races are long and we can’t give up. Others are going to make mistakes, and a lot of people had us circled as that team trying too hard and making mistakes, and we didn’t.”
Ryan Blaney is just six below the cutline. Still, like his eliminated reigning champion teammate Joey Logano, he just hasn’t enjoyed the speed needed to make him a safe bet to advance through this next round too.
Fortunately for him, he is riding a top-10 streak of five consecutive races at Texas, which would aid his chances considerably if that can continue.
Chastain finished fifth at Darlington but 13th and 23rd at Kansas and Bristol. That likely won’t be enough this time around and he knows it.
“We’re going to digest this past round and prepare for Texas and we’re going to take it race-by-race,” he said after Bristol.
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No one is safe
So once again, Truex and William Byron have the cleanest path to the final four. With his win and two stage wins over the past three races, Denny Hamlin has now joined that upper tier of contenders. It’s almost a version of the Big Three we used to talk about every year.
But going back to the narrative from the start of the playoffs, there is so much parity with this current generation of cars that no one especially has a big safety net under them for the start of each round. It’s made every challenger lament every missed opportunity over the regular season to score more bonus points that come with winning races or stage victories.
Like, Tyler Reddick won the race at Kansas and those playoff points are added to his regular season total for the start of the second round, but he’s only three above the cutline. If it weren’t for his most recent win, he would be two below Chastain.
That’s how tight everything is.
Not necessarily for the Round of 12. If we can get them, we need to for sure.
“We had a disastrous summer, really, and it set us back in a number of ways,” Reddick said. “We had several opportunities to win and we just gave away so many points that could have easily had us in the top five in points come the start of the playoffs.
“It’s all said and done so there’s nothing we can do about it now. Thankfully we have speed so that will help us make up the gap if we keep bringing that to the track. When you have speed, it’s nice to just focus on that and when you don’t have speed you have to get creative to try and survive the rounds. We should be in good shape for the Round of 12 but it’s going to get more interesting for the Round of 8 for sure.”
Kyle Busch feels the same way about a summer stretch that dropped him from third in the points to 11th.
“We had a bad four out of six races that changed our season,” Busch said. “I’ve lived through this before where we didn’t have enough points to fall back on and all of that could have been mitigated by the regular season.”
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.