The first elimination race of NASCAR’s playoffs has a three-time Daytona 500 winner and a pair of former Cup Series champions in danger of being bumped from title contention Saturday night at Bristol Motor Speedway.
The trio also happen to be among NASCAR’s biggest stars in a 16-driver playoff field in which popular drivers Kyle Busch, Ross Chastain and Bubba Wallace were among those who failed to qualify.
So this year’s field is fairly watered down, and yet Denny Hamlin, Brad Keselowski, Martin Truex Jr. and Harrison Burton are all below the cutline headed into the first elimination race of the playoffs. The bottom four drivers at the end of Saturday night’s race will be eliminated.
For Hamlin, a four-time winner at Bristol, the goal is very simple.
“I’m coming here to win,” Hamlin said Friday. “That strategy won’t change unless the situation changes in the race. I’m going on the offense starting right away, and I’m going to be fine with the result, either way.
“I just know, that over 500 laps here, things will work themselves out.”
Joey Logano is the only driver locked into the second round based on his victory in the playoff opener at Atlanta. That leaves the other 11 spots open, with the bottom four in most trouble.
The Atlanta race and the road course at Watkins Glen last week are new venues to the 10-race playoff schedule and that’s how Hamlin, a three-time Daytona 500 winner, and 2012 champion Keselowski and 2017 champion Truex landed in this spot.
Both tracks are unpredictable and Keselowski’s 19th-place finish at Atlanta is the highest among the three drivers in both races. Truex, who was 20th at Watkins Glen, was seething after that race over the lack of respect among drivers throughout the field.
He’s retiring from full-time competition at the end of the season, and figured it’s probably too late to turn into a dirty driver now. He said he didn’t know if he’d be willing to step outside his ethical beliefs to advance into the next playoff round.
“I really don’t know. I think it will just kind of depend on the situation — what we find ourselves in and what is going on,” Truex said. “But most likely not. I will most likely race the same way I always do and hopefully we are good enough to get the job done in that way.”
