Only one driver is safe heading into Martinsville. The rest are in the hot seat.
Joey Logano clinched his spot in the Championship 4 with his win at Las Vegas, but, after non-Playoff driver Kyle Larson won at Miami last week, no other driver has clinched a spot in the final race of the season.
That leaves Chase Elliott, Ross Chastain, William Byron, Denny Hamlin, Ryan Blaney, Christopher Bell and Chase Briscoe with a season to play for in Sunday’s Xfinity 500 at Martinsville Speedway (2 p.m. ET on NBC, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). While Chastain comes in with the largest points buffer, at 19 above, no driver has enough points to lock themselves in. And they shouldn’t expect a smooth ride, according to Chastain himself.
“We’ve seen year over year, it produces some crazy races,” he said of Martinsville. “I don’t expect anything different.”
It’s another place that I am looking for a little bit of speed at,” Chastain added. “It was challenging to pass in the spring, but we were a car that went from around 27th and drove to fifth, but it took me all race to get there. It’s been high on my list to be better there”
Chase Elliott is 11 points to the good, followed by Byron just five above the cutline. Hamlin, a five-time Martinsville winner, is five points on the other side, followed by Blaney at 18 below. All those drivers are reasonably in contention to get in on points with a good run at Martinsville.
But Christopher Bell and Chase Briscoe, 33 and 44 points below respectively, will at least be happy that a win guarantees them a spot. The two drivers aren’t technically in a must-win situation, but both are coming in with a win in mind. Briscoe is especially hoping to make the next round so he can contend for a championship at Phoenix, the track he took his first win at earlier this year.
“It is kind of the perfect cutoff race,” Briscoe said. “We go to some of these tracks and, especially on the short tracks, you can run out of patience pretty easily. You want to bump a guy and mess them up getting into a corner and you can’t even get to them. But at Martinsville, you have every opportunity to do that.”
“When you add in the parity we’ve seen all year with the new car,” he added, “it creates an opportunity for a lot more guys to be battling up front now for the win.”
Kyle Busch knows how to find victory lane at Martinsville, having done so twice. He explained the competitive racing that lends itself to close battles and tempers.
“Typically, you are off the throttle more than you are on the throttle at Martinsville, so your time is lost or made when you are off the gas. That lends itself to guys dive-bombing and making moves and being light on the brake and running into the back of guys, or rooting them out of the bottom and getting them shuffled back.”
Xfinity Series is fighting too
Two spots at Phoenix are available in Saturday’s Dead On Tools 250 at Martinsville Speedway (3:30 p.m. ET on NBC, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) as the Xfinity Series enters its penultimate round.
Josh Berry and Noah Gragson won at Vegas and Homestead respectively and are locked in for Phoenix. Two more drivers will be joining them after Martinsville.
One will be determined based on points, which is good news for Ty Gibbs. He comes into the race third in the points with a 30-point lead over the cutline, and he comes off a strong run in the Spring race. He just needs 31 points in the race to lock himself in.
“Martinsville is a challenging track, but one I do have experience at,” said Gibbs. “We know what we need to do to advance to the final four, but winning makes it that much easier.”
AJ Allmendinger also comes into the race above the cutline, but just by five points. He’s won five times this year, tying Gibbs, but had a poor finish at Vegas that cost him points. He’ll be fighting for points all day, but a win will automatically lock him in.
Allmendinger’s competition is Justin Allgaier and Austin Hill, who sit five and seven points below the cutline respectively.
Some other drivers will be happy to hear that winning is still a guarantee. That includes Sam Mayer and Brandon Jones, 28 and 38 points below the cutline respectively. However, Jones has the experience: he won the Spring race and is the series’ most recent winner at Martinsville.
As for the track itself, Riley Herbst, who was eliminated from the Playoffs before the Round of 8, said it shows the sport at its best.
“I think these tracks are good for a lot of the drivers in NASCAR because it’s like the short tracks we grew up racing on,” he said. “It’s what we’re all used to. There’s a lot of strategy that goes into short tracks, from pit stops to just the racing, in general.”
- The Monster Mile brings short track style to high banking - April 25, 2024
- Sam Mayer scores Xfinity win by an inch in photo finish at Texas - April 13, 2024
- NASCAR adds Stories to its app for social-style highlights - April 10, 2024