You see that winning margin for Ross Chastain at Kansas?
William Byron gave a brief thrill to many onlookers when he took the low-lane dive into Turn 3 while Ross The Boss was way up in the high line (“high, wide and handsome,” as Barney Hall would say).
It made for momentary theatrics but everyone knew how that would shake out as the two cars came off the corner. Still, on paper the Chastain victory margin was less than four tenths of a second — .388, according to the timekeeper.
The old eyeballs told us it was roughly five car lengths between the two as Chastain crossed the stripe.
Let’s say that’s about 80 feet. Now, consider how wide the typical speedway is at that part of the track.
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Care to guess how many cars will fit within that much property while the checkers are flying at Talladega this coming Sunday?
With playoff survival and season-salvaging on the line?
There’s a lot we don’t know when Talladega starts to crack its knuckles and clear its throat. But we know this: It’ll probably be messy.
Let’s go through the gears to catch up with the playoff scene, post-Kansas, and white-knuckle the shifter as we pick up the pace with Alabama up there on the near horizon.
First Gear: Ross Chastain wins. Martin Truex, Kyle Busch still digging
Remember when it was rare for a non-playoff driver to win a playoff race? So far, through four playoff races, two have been won by outsiders, including Chastain’s win at Kansas, where he gave a big lift to a team whose season was made more disappointing due to the increase in expectations.
With six more races remaining, including this week’s Talladega wild-card and next week’s road course, we’re likely to see another non-playoff team go to Victory Lane. Turns out, a handful of capable teams with capable drivers missed the playoffs, and so far two of them have won playoff races.
Martin Truex, by the way, slowed his low-profile exit and suggested he might just win a race on the way out. Hey, contending is Step 1, and he did that.
Kyle Busch had yet another chance to fill the 2024 void in his throbbing trophy case, and we’ll discuss that in more detail below.
And now we get Talladega, where literally anyone entered can win it. Well, damn near anyone. Looking at you, Kaz Grala. Well, BJ McLeod too, but he has broad shoulders and we don’t want to anger him.
Second Gear: Kyle Larson guts a Goodyear, again can’t follow a win
Looking ahead a few weeks, Martinsville is the 35th race on the 36-race schedule. If Kyle Larson has wrapped up his position as part of the Championship Four for the Phoenix finale, he needs to make sure he does all he can to lose at Martinsville.
Doesn’t have to finish 25th or 35th, just don’t win it. Why? Glad you asked.
A week ago here, we pointed out the weird Kyle Larson stat for this season, and suggested it’s why you shouldn’t bank heavily on him at Kansas (figuratively and/or literally).
Prior to his dominating win last week at Bristol, Larson had four wins this season. His finishes in the race immediately following those wins: 14th, 34th, 34th, 7th.
Well, add Sunday’s 26th at Kansas to that. Listen, we’re not blaming Kyle. He somehow cut a tire in the early laps and was probably lucky to get that 26th-place showing. Not his fault, but still, there’s some odd mojo out there keeping him from contending the week after a win.
So if he comes off Turn 4 on the final lap at Martinsville, he should consider downshifting or, at minimum, lifting.
Why risk a fight with fate?
Third Gear: Kyle Busch kinda blames Chase Briscoe
Kyle Busch isn’t quite 40 yet. Gaining on it quickly, however. And Lord knows he’s been around NASCAR long enough to whip out the back in my day routine.
Yet again, he looked poised to salvage his season and keep his win streak alive — 19 straight seasons with at least one win — when he was leading late at Kansas.
Yep, leading again … until he tried to put a lap on Chase Briscoe with a high-lane pass that didn’t work out. Briscoe is hanging tight to his playoff life and Busch is battling like hell to take something positive away from 2024.
Those two desires weren’t a good mix. With the finicky aerodynamics of the Next Gen car in a co-starring role, Kyle couldn’t navigate the squeeze between Briscoe and the wall — instead, he lost the rear-end, slapped the wall, spun off the track, and went away quietly.
Just kidding. Sure, by Kyle Busch standards, it was an extremely mild critique, but still, he reminisced about the days when a driver would give some more room, in spite of wanting to stay on the lead lap.
The way I remember it, it always depended on who the driver was. Dave Marcis wasn’t going to make it easy. And Ryan Newman would go out of his way to make it downright difficult.
Fourth Gear: Alex Bowman, Tyler Reddick on opposite sides of bubble (if bubbles have sides)
Tyler Reddick won Talladega back in the spring, and man could he use a repeat.
He was trending strongly several weeks back — basically getting his mail in the top five, mixing in a win at Michigan, then starting the playoffs with a sixth at Atlanta.
Since then: 27th, 20th, 25th, and just like that, he’s on the wrong side of the pending bubble, in ninth place.
On the other side of that coin is Alex Bowman. In the last five races of the regular season, he finished no better than 16th and his average finish was 24th. There was chatter about his future in the No. 48 car, and not happy chatter, by the way.
Then the playoffs start and it looks like he’s joined teammate Chase Elliott at the “Terry Labonte Points Racing Seminar.”
He was 16th at Watkins Glen, but his other playoff finishes are 5th, 9th and 6th. In the midst of this, Hendrick Motorsports put the Bowman rumors to bed, and maybe there’s a correlation? Who’s to argue?
Now Bowman is sitting sixth in the standings with an eight-point cushion, which is obviously tenuous approaching Talladega. But still, you wouldn’t have been shocked if he’d been a Round of 16 departure. And now he has some wind at his back.
— Reach Ken Willis at ken.willis@news-jrnl.com
