It’s playoff time in the NASCAR Cup Series.
For the next 10 weeks, we’re going to be counting points and expecting chaos under NASCAR’s 10 race elimination showdown format.
The schedule has undergone a significant overhaul from previous seasons. The playoffs now start two weeks earlier on Labor Day weekend and with the Southern 500 instead of Chicagoland Speedway. It also includes more short tracks with the return of Richmond but the inclusion of the Bristol Night Race.
The middle round includes both Talladega and the Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL.
There are two clear cut favorites in Kevin Harvick and Denny Hamlin with the middle and lower seeds all tightly wound together. It makes the next 10 weeks intriguing but also hard to predict, but the job implores that we try.
Will time prove me to be a brilliant prognosticator or an abject fool? We’ll revisit these picks in November to see how I did so give us your predictions in the comments section below.
Round of 16
Darlington, Richmond and Bristol
All eyes will be on defending Cup Series champion Kyle Busch as he begins the 2020 playoffs below the cutline. The first round represents some of his best tracks and he will take advantage of them, successfully staving off elimination. It wouldn’t be a surprise to actually see him get a win over the first three races as he’s contended for the win at both Darlington and Bristol this season. Richmond is arguably his best track.
Meanwhile, the eliminations for this first round are obvious. Austin Dillon and Cole Custer were able to capitalize on circumstances and the NA18D rules package to win their races at Texas and Kentucky, respectively. Otherwise, they haven’t consistently run inside the top-15 all year.
Clint Bowyer and Matt DiBenedetto have high enough upsides that it wouldn’t be a huge surprise to see them advance, but with only three and zero playoff points to their name, they have no margin of error and will need to be more than their 14.7 and 15.0 average finishes indicate.
Kurt Busch will outscore Bowyer and DiBenedetto to advance as they’ve shown just a little more speed than the rest.
Round of 12
Las Vegas, Talladega and the Charlotte ROVAL
Anyone who claims any degree of certainty surrounding this round is lying to you. Both Talladega and the ROVAL are wild card races by themselves and they’re going to end a round that promises chaos alongside the first intermediate race of the playoffs at Las Vegas.
Kyle Busch will continue his resurgence in this round, advancing on virtue of strong runs at Vegas and Charlotte, while avoiding trouble at Talladega.
William Byron, Alex Bowman, Kurt Busch and Aric Almirola will be unable to stave off elimination.
The numbers game will catch up to Byron in this round with so few playoff points to buffer his chances. Bowman hasn’t won since Fontana in March and has been largely a fringe top-10 driver this season beyond his initial triumph. Almirola hasn’t won but sheer consistency will no longer be enough by this point of the season, especially having so few playoff points to fallback on the same.
But again, with Talladega in the middle of this round, expect similar racing and desperate decisions as witnessed last weekend at Daytona.
If Byron goes back-to-back in superspeedway races, or if any of the remaining drivers in the Round of 12 steals a win, that could be the equivalent of a March Madness bracket buster.
Round of 8
Kansas, Texas and Martinsville
What would otherwise be the most procedural round based on Kansas and Texas will have an added intensity to it with the magnification of every stage result and counting of stage points.
Unless he has won a great deal prior to this round, or can win in this round, this is likely the end of the road for Kyle Busch’s championship defense. He enters the playoffs with just one playoff point, which alone makes it difficult to advance from round to round without accumulating more in the first two rounds. Busch was always going to need to win this season to advance back to the championship race and this is as far you can likely get without doing so.
Chase Elliott has been unable to advance to the championship race in each of his first four full-time seasons but will do so for the first time in 2020.
He will join ‘The Big 2’ of Kevin Harvick and Denny Hamlin in the finale. The final spot will go to Martin Truex Jr. who has been a weekly fixture in the top-5 for the past two months, despite only winning once this season.
The No. 19 team is bound to add a win or two to get back to the championship race.
That means Penske drivers Joey Logano, Brad Keselowski and Ryan Blaney each get cut at Martinsville alongside the defending champion.
Championship Race
Phoenix
Harvick, Hamlin, Elliott, Truex
This championship race combination features all three manufacturers and three different organizations.
While it’s easy to point to Denny Hamlin’s status as the most successful driver without a championship since (and perhaps supplanting) Mark Martin, and say the streak will end, this format is just too combustible.
Elliott has led laps at Phoenix, including 93 in March, and should also be in the mix throughout the race. Truex led 11 laps early in March before his involvement in a crash and should also be in the mix as well.
At the end of the day, Harvick at Phoenix is just too hard to pick against. Harvick has seven wins under the track’s current configuration that debuted in 2012 — including six over a span of eight races (that included one runner-up) from 2012-2016.
Give Harvick and Rodney Childers an entire summer to optimize one car for Phoenix without practice and qualifying and it results in a second championship.
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