With the NASCAR Cup Series Playoff field trimmed by four drivers, the Round of 12 begins Sunday at Kansas Speedway with the Hollywood Casino 400 Presented by ESPN BET (3 p.m. ET on USA, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Last Saturday night at Bristol Motor Speedway, former champions Brad Keselowski and Martin Truex Jr. were eliminated from title contention, along with relative neophytes Ty Gibbs and Harrison Burton.
That leaves Bristol race winner Kyle Larson, Christopher Bell, Tyler Reddick, William Byron, Ryan Blaney, Denny Hamlin, Chase Elliott, Joey Logano, Austin Cindric, Daniel Suarez, Alex Bowman and Chase Briscoe to vie for the championship.
All five Chevrolet drivers who made the Playoffs—including all four entries from Hendrick Motorsports—advanced to the Round of 12, with Larson retaining top seeding with a seemingly comfortable margin of 39 points above the current cut line for the Round of 8.
That’s not to say the Round of 12 won’t be intensely competitive. The bottom seven drivers in the field are separated by a mere 10 points.
Cindric was a model of consistency in the Round of 16. He was 10th at both Atlanta and Watkins Glen—the only driver to post top 10s in both races—and 13th at Bristol. Cindric scored points in three of six stages, including a win in the second stage at Atlanta.
With the points reset after the opening round, Cindric finds himself ninth in the standings, four points behind Team Penske teammate Joey Logano, who currently occupies the last eligible position for the Round of 8.
“I think, for us, it’s really replicating a similar performance from the Round of 16, the first round for us,” Cindric said about his prospects for advancement. “You look at the numbers, and what we did for the past round is probably the bare minimum of what’s going to get us to advance for this round, so from a points perspective, it definitely gets more challenging, especially the deficit we have to the top four or five guys.
“It definitely becomes more of an issue when you start to eliminate guys that are in a similar space as far as points go as what we are. Otherwise, a win obviously is what you want to do, especially to be able to do it in the first two races. That makes things a lot easier, but for us, I still think this is a no-mistakes round. This is ‘Don’t take yourself out of it and race within our limits.’”
Five of the 12 Playoff drivers are past winners at 1.5-mile Kansas. Hamlin, who finished a solid fourth at Bristol to advance, leads the group with four victories, the last coming in the spring race of 2023.
“It’s game on from here,” said Hamlin, who vaulted from negative to positive territory in the Bass Pro Shops Night Race. “We need to be on the offensive from the start of practice this weekend and put ourselves in position to get stage points and have an opportunity to win the race or get a solid finish to set ourselves up for Talladega and the ROVAL.
“Kansas has historically been one of our better tracks, maybe our best, honestly, so we are more than capable.”
Logano has three Kansas wins, but none since the fall race of 2020. Larson got the second of his two victories at the track in May, and teammate Chase Elliot scored his lone triumph in 2018. Tyler Reddick is the defending winner of the Hollywood Casino 400, having claimed his only victory at the track last year.
NASCAR Xfinity Series Playoffs get under way on Saturday
In last Friday’s Food City 300 at Bristol Motor Speedway, the NASCAR Xfinity Series’ final regular-season race, there weren’t any surprise as to which drivers qualified for the Playoffs.
The real shocker came when Justin Allgaier’s ill fortune erased a 43-point lead and handed the regular-season title to reigning series champion Cole Custer.
But with the points reset, Allgaier is the top seed with a 27-point edge over ninth-place Sheldon Creed as the series begins its Playoff Round of 12 in Saturday’s Kansas Lottery 300 at Kansas Speedway (4 p.m. ET on CW, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Along with Allgaier and Custer, eight other drivers had secured Playoff spots before the Bristol race: Austin Hill, Chandler Smith, Shane van Gisbergen, Jesse Love, Sam Mayer, Riley Herbst, Sheldon Creed and AJ Allmendinger.
Sammy Smith and Parker Kligerman completed the Playoff field on points in Friday’s race.
Creed has never won an Xfinity Series race, but the driver of the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota has finished second 13 times, including the final two regular-season races this year. He enters the Playoffs with six top fives in his last eight races.
“Kansas is one of my favorite race tracks,” said Creed, who finished third last season in his second Xfinity start at the 1.5-mile track. “It’s probably my second favorite right behind Darlington, so I have high hopes going into this weekend. From here on out, every qualifying session, stage point, and race mean more than ever, so the pressure is on to execute.
“Ideally, I’d like to leave Kansas with good stage points, a strong finish, and hopefully even a win. There’s a lot of talented guys in this field, so I know we need to rise to the occasion if we’re going to have a shot at this championship.
“It all starts in Kansas and we’re going to do everything we can to put ourselves in a good position heading into Talladega (the second Playoff race on Oct. 5).”
Truck Series Playoff field will be cut to eight at Kansas Speedway
Three drivers occupy comfortable positions, and two are in peril as the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series visits Kansas Speedway for Friday’s Kubota Tractor 200 (8:30 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Based on their respective performances in the first two events of the series Playoffs, Christian Eckes, Corey Heim and Nick Sanchez already have clinched berths in the Round of 8.
On the other hand, both defending series champion Ben Rhodes and Playoff newbie Daniel Dye face elimination if they can’t erase 12- and seven-point deficits, respectively, to the current cut line for the next round.
Heim, Eckes and eighth-place Grant Enfinger are the three most recent Kansas winners. Heim dominated the 2024 spring race, winning the first stage, finishing second in Stage 2 and beating Zane Smith to the finish line by 1.088 seconds.
The remarkable aspect of the Playoffs so far doesn’t involve a Playoff driver. Rookie Layne Riggs, driving the No. 38 Ford for Front Row Motorsports, won his first two NCTS races in the Playoff events at the Milwaukee Mile and Bristol Motor Speedway.
The 22-year-old from Bahama, N.C., goes for a sweep of the round on Friday.
“It’s an unbelievable feeling of what this team and I have accomplished these past two races,” said Riggs, son of former NASCAR driver Scott Riggs. “It stings a little that we’re not in the Playoffs, but that pushes us even more.
“I’m a rookie driver with a rookie crew chief (Dylan Cappello). It wasn’t going to be easy, but things are starting to click, and I’m proud of the progression we’ve made as a group.”
