The NASCAR Cup Series playoffs kicked off its Round of 12 Sunday with nary an underdog to be found at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Eleven of the championship contenders remaining came from three heavyweights: Team Penske, Hendrick Motorsports and Joe Gibbs Racing. The 12th? Kevin Harvick, a former NASCAR champion and winner of nine races just last season.
It's like sitting at a blackjack table and watching as the dealer draws a 10, face up. You know you need every card in the hand to break your way and beat the house.
Championship leader Kyle Larson learned that the hard way. He had the fastest car for much of the first two stages, winning the first and leading 95 of 152 laps. But Larson, along with his Hendrick teammates, didn't pit during a lap 91 caution for Joey Gase's wreck. It forced an extra stop before the end of the second stage, costing him precious track position and forcing a wave around to get back on the lead lap.
"Everyone is fighting so hard back there to run their race," he said, "That I just got kind of stuck. Not beat around, but just stuck and having to race. It's just hard."
Just like that, Larson was out of contention. He could only work back to 10th.
And so it went for a Vegas race that proved unforgiving with playoff drivers on their A game. Just four total cautions, none for the final 100 laps, meant any small mistake could doom your chances.
Take William Byron. He drove from the rear of the field not once, but twice (pre-race inspection failure, slow pit work). He finally got in position for a top-5 finish late only to suffer through a flat tire.
One extra pit stop later, a good hand went bust. Byron's 18th place finish left him four points outside the cutline.
"God," he said on the radio, "I don't know how this s--- happens to us."
And so stepping into the Hendrick void was Denny Hamlin, 0-for-19 in his Vegas career for Joe Gibbs Racing. Leading 98 of the final 115 laps, the No. 11 Toyota held off Chase Elliott to earn his second victory in four playoff races, clinching a spot in the semifinal Round of 8.
"We knew that this is what we're capable of," Hamlin said after suffering through a winless regular season. "Really, we've shown this all year long ... Hopefully, this is the start of a really good run."
Hamlin has now led 35.5% of all laps run during the postseason to lead all drivers. Only Larson (28.3%) comes close as Hamlin's team appears to have saved their ace cards for the playoffs. Most importantly, the No. 11 team can now breathe easy with two unpredictable tracks in Talladega and the Charlotte ROVAL left in this round.
Does that make him the best man to step up and challenge Larson?
"Our team's been really capable all year long," said Hamlin's crew chief Chris Gabehart. "Every metric other than the win column has been astounding for our team. It's really been our best year together thus far. You stay up front as much as we have, the wins are going to finally come. They're coming at the right time."
Traffic Report
Green: Joe Gibbs Racing
Three teams inside the top four was a best-case scenario heading into unpredictable Talladega; a 1-3-4 finish laid down the gauntlet against Hendrick and Penske. Even Christopher Bell, the lone outlier after pit road damage early in the race, sits 25 points below the cutline and has time to make up the difference.
Yellow: Tyler Reddick
The Richard Childress Racing driver had to wonder what could have been after failing to advance to the Round of 12 by two points. He captured 12 stage points, then ran second for much of the final stage before fading to sixth after pitting later than most of the leaders. I'm surprised this RCR team didn't try a different strategy (two tires?) to try and get Reddick his first win. Felt like a missed opportunity.
Red: Alex Bowman
Like his teammate, an extra green-flag stop for tire issues left Bowman with a disappointing finish (22nd) and sitting 13 points below the cutline. That's half the deficit Bell has to make up, but Bowman's absorbed a lot of punches during the playoffs. Just one top-5 finish the last eight races doesn't bode well for his chances.
Speeding Ticket: Talladega
Every year, you wonder how fair it is this track looms large in this round. The most unique track on the circuit, the racing package there equalizes all 40 cars and leaves them superglued together in one large draft.
All it takes is one small mistake and half the field is wiped out in the Big One. Talk about a tough luck end to anyone's championship chase.
"Cross your fingers, cross your toes," Martin Truex Jr. said, "Do some praying this week at Talladega and see what happens."
Is that really how we should settle any part of a NASCAR playoff?
Oops!
The NASCAR Xfinity and Camping World Truck Series races were far more competitive this weekend, both of them marked with key mistakes by playoff contenders.
First came the Trucks, where Sheldon Creed simply missed Chandler Smith sliding to the bottom of the track.
"I was throttled up to get by on the bottom and through the smoke came the 18," Creed said. "It hurt me a little bit. Just unfortunate."
Then came Xfinity, where a jumbled-up restart led to a 12-car wreck more reminiscent of pack racing than a 1.5-mile intermediate.
Clearly, five-wide doesn't work pretty much on any paved oval. Jeb Burton, Riley Herbst and Jeremy Clements were the three NXS drivers taken out in this one.
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