Bell’s recent record of becoming a good speedway racer does not include Talladega. He has just one top 10 in his last five starts there and crashed out of Dega’s most recent race in April.
2
Alex Bowman
Bowman is starting to feel like a driver who can do far more in this year’s playoffs than anyone outside of the No. 48 team imagined. For what it’s worth, Bowman’s deepest playoff run so far was a trip to the Round of 8 in 2020.
3
Kyle Larson
Salvaging a 26th place finish with a damaged racecar helped Larson lessen the blow of a cut tire, as he remains 18 points above the cut line. But that advantage can quickly disappear at Talladega, where he has just three top 10s his entire career and none since he ran fourth in the spring of 2022.
4
Ryan Blaney
With three Talladega wins to his name, Blaney is starting to make his way into the ranks of the track’s all-time winningest drivers. A fourth Talladega win this weekend will tie him with NASCAR Hall of Famers Bobby Allison, Buddy Baker and Darrell Waltrip.
5
Ross Chastain
I like to think that somewhere, someone in the agricultural community is using Chastain’s Kansas win to troll their friends over their preference in farm equipment. For what it’s worth, Kubota now has one win as a Cup primary sponsor while John Deere has none despite all those years on Chad Little’s car.
6
Chase Elliott
You have to wonder what it does for the morale of Elliott’s team that they were able to turn a motor issue in practice and running dead last in qualifying into a top 10 outing at Kansas. If Elliott can make it through the Round of 8, he could give the rest of the remaining playoff drivers all they can handle.
7
Joey Logano
Logano has three Talladega wins in his career, and you can expect him to run up front again this weekend. Logano led 22 laps, second most of any driver in the field, back in April.
8
Denny Hamlin
Hamlin was surprisingly candid in his frustration after Kansas, telling Bob Pockrass’ Fox Sports that he isn’t “in it” mentally right now. If you’re rooting for Hamlin to win his first Cup title, that’s hardly a reassuring thing to hear.
9
Daniel Suarez
It’s hard to be consistent at Talladega, but Suarez has found a way to do so. Prior to getting swept up in The Big One coming to the checkered flag in April, Suarez had been on a streak of three Talladega top 10 finishes in a row.
10
Ty Gibbs
A fifth place finish at Kansas gave Gibbs eight top-five finishes on the 2024 season. That’s double the total he had in his rookie year of 2023 with still six races left to run.
11
William Byron
With Byron coming off a runner-up finish at Kansas, file this away just in case: The last time a driver won both the Daytona 500 and at least one race at Talladega in the same season was 2020 when Denny Hamlin did it.
12
Chris Buescher
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Great news for Buescher: With Kansas Week over he doesn’t have to be subject to the highlight of him losing in that photo finish over and over again anymore. They even put the photo of it in the airport for crying out loud!
13
Chase Briscoe
You can understand why Briscoe didn’t cut Kyle Busch any slack despite Busch being the leader and Briscoe being on the verge of going a lap down, but it doesn’t help Briscoe’s case that he angered Carson Hocevar a couple laps later in a somewhat similar situation. I suppose you don’t make the Round of 8 without making a few enemies along the way.
14
Austin Cindric
Cindric likely would have been in a great position playoff-wise had he been able to get through Kansas with a decent finish, and he had the pace to do so before problems on pit road and his accident on the backstretch. Now, there’s going to be an extra burden on him to not just run well at Talladega and the Roval, but also to pick up a bunch of stage points to mitigate the damage Kansas did.
15
Tyler Reddick
Despite some hope he could end up with a top 10 finish late, a 25th place for Reddick was a disastrous outcome considering how unpredictable the next two races could be. If he isn’t careful — and even if he is — the regular season champion could be a surprise exit from the playoffs if things go awry these next two races.
16
Ryan Preece
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The present moment feels like a good time for Preece to be hitting on all cylinders. With five-straight finishes of 18th or better, Preece now goes to Talladega where he finished a career-best third in 2019.
17
Martin Truex Jr.
Truex Jr. will have one more shot to win Talladega in a Cup car this weekend despite winning three races in a row there in the Xfinity Series from 2004 to 2006. Truex’s best Cup finish at Dega is a fifth on three different occasions.
18
Kyle Busch
To add some historical context to Busch’s consecutive winning seasons record being in jeopardy: The previous record of 18 was snapped in 1978, when Richard Petty failed to win a race for the first time since 1960. The next season, he won five times en route to winning his seventh Winston Cup championship.
19
Zane Smith
With just one more top 10 finish, Smith has the chance to tie teammate and Rookie of the Year frontrunner Carson Hocevar for the most top 10s by a Cup rookie this season. What a second-half turnaround Smith has had after a dismal start to his first full-time season.
20
Bubba Wallace
Wallace’s 17th place finish was the best for any 23XI car at Kansas this season, matching his finish from back in May. Whatever 23XI Racing had figured out about Kansas, the rest of the field figured out and left them well behind on.
21
Noah Gragson
Gragson should be at the top of people’s lists when it comes to potential dark horse Talladega winners. Gragson has been in position to win both of his last two Talladega starts, which includes a third place finish in April.
22
Carson Hocevar
Hocevar led five laps at Kansas after taking the lead on a restart, the most laps he’s led in any Cup race this season. The Rookie of the Year frontrunner has now led at least one lap in eight races total in 2024.
23
Brad Keselowski
You can’t necessarily blame him, but the best place for any driver to be entering the trioval at Talladega on the final lap is not in a position where Keselowski is second and they have to block him. Carl Edwards found that out the hard way in 2009, as did Michael McDowell this past spring.
24
Corey LaJoie
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LaJoie excels as a speedway racer, and he may have an even better chance at victory this weekend than when he was earning top-five finishes in speedway races for Spire Motorsports. LaJoie gets to reap the benefits of Ford’s speedway program, which Justin Haley did when he led 21 laps at Daytona in August driving the car LaJoie is driving now.
25
Michael McDowell
McDowell’s chance to earn a measure of redemption at Talladega has come. He’s had chances to win both of the last two superspeedway races, only to make spectacular exits from the race after getting spun from the lead.
26
Daniel Hemric
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You have to have a lot of sympathy for Hemric, who for the second-straight time will go one-and-done in a full-time Cup ride despite not running all too terrible. Despite the disappointment of not returning to Kaulig Racing next year, Hemric was able to turn in another top 20 finish at Kansas.
27
Harrison Burton
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Wouldn’t it be something if Burton could get not just Win 100 for the Wood Brothers, but also Win 101? The last time the Wood Brothers won more than once in a season was in 1981, when Neil Bonnett won three times late in the year at Darlington, Dover, and Atlanta.
28
Justin Haley
Haley can and should be considered a legitimate threat to win at Talladega. His superspeedway skills are well-documented, and Spire Motorsports looks to have fully matured as an organization capable of contending the rest of this season and into 2025.
29
Austin Dillon
Lost in the disappointment of Kyle Busch missing out on his first win of 2024 was that Dillon had the best finish for a Richard Childress Racing car at Kansas in 12th. For Dillon, it marked his best finish since his controversial win at Richmond.
30
Todd Gilliland
Keep your eye on Gilliland this weekend, because he should have a car capable of winning just like his teammate Michael McDowell should. In the most recent superspeedway race, Gilliland led five laps from the outside pole before getting swept up in a late-race crash.
