NASCAR playoff race at Bristol is one last chance to avoid mistakes
By Bob Pockrass
FOX Sports NASCAR Writer
The first round of the NASCAR playoffs is often about teams not beating themselves.
When cutting the Cup Series playoff field from 16 to 12, drivers and teams who have mistake-free rounds typically will advance. That's not the case when cutting the field from 12 to eight and especially from eight to four, when just doing the best the car can and eliminating mistakes might not be good enough.
The drivers on the brink of elimination entering the race Saturday at Bristol Motor Speedway have to put the disappointment of the results from early in the round behind them.
That isn’t easy, especially when the elimination race is at a track where a driver can do everything right but get collected in another driver’s crash or be the victim of another driver’s aggression.
"There’s the most opportunity for mistakes and the biggest opportunity for success," said William Byron, who enters the race 18 points behind the cutoff, thanks to finishes of 34th and 19th in the opening two playoff races. "It’s a really tough track.
"There’s not much difference between the good cars and the bad ones. It’s a very tough place to get around, and I feel like you can really make a difference. I would say it’s just the most unpredictable race of the round, probably."
The four winless drivers with the fewest points in the round will be eliminated following Bristol.
Byron was eliminated at Bristol last year, knowing it was the last chance for his crew chief, seven-time Cup championship crew chief Chad Knaus, to vie for a title before taking an executive role at Hendrick.
This year is a little bit different, as he knows that he’s racing for the now while his team is also building for the future.
"I know that my team is solid," Byron said. "I know that we’re doing all the right things. I think it’s been a tough two-race stretch for us, but we’ve had speed consistently.
"So I feel like the intangible qualities, the good qualities that are really important are there. It’s just a matter of executing the races and putting ourselves in position to advance."
Teams obviously learn throughout the playoffs how to approach races. Tyler Reddick, who sits five points behind the cutoff after finishes of 18th and 15th in the opening two races, said his team let some of its preparation slip when focusing on minute details rather than the general picture of the playoff opener at Darlington.
"We just kind of missed one of the more obvious, maybe redundant parts of our preparation. And being on the same page about how we think the track is going to change, what adjustments we like in our car, what ones we need to stay away from," Reddick said.
"It’s like showing up to a football game and not really ever putting together a game plan. It happens. And it showed."
The more common mistakes happen on the track, as Alex Bowman had in the opening race of the round by hitting the wall in the first 10 laps at Darlington. He’s still paying the price, tied with Kurt Busch for the final playoff spot after finishes of 26th and 12th in the first two races.
"When you put yourself in a hole like that, it’s tough to overcome," Bowman said. "Unfortunately, we didn’t have a night capable of overcoming that tonight, and we’re going to have to go do that next week.
"Yeah, it’s a bummer. It puts us in a really tough spot. But when you have these three-round deals, that’s what happens."
For a driver such as Michael McDowell, who is 38 points behind the cutoff, shedding the disappointment won’t be easy after finishes of 37th and 28th. He spun on his own at Darlington and then was penalized for speeding three times at Richmond — including while serving one of his pit road drive-through penalties ... for speeding.
"The playoffs has been really disappointing, and what’s so disappointing about it, for me and for all of our guys, is that it’s been mistakes," McDowell said. "It hasn’t been a lack of speed. ... I’m very disappointed in myself."
The only driver without a top-10 finish in the opening two races who still is above the playoff cutline is Aric Almirola, who placed 16th and 14th in the two races and is clinging to a spot, with a three-point cushion on the cutoff. He was on pace for a top-10 finish at Richmond before having to pit under green for a loose lug nut.
"We can’t really give up any points," Almirola said. "It would have been a lot nicer to go to Bristol plus-12 instead of plus-three or -four, but it is what it is.
"It’s no big deal. We’ve got to put our head down and go race."
Drivers who are eliminated can still finish as high as fifth — or as low as 16th — in the standings, so being eliminated doesn’t end their seasons. And scoring points in a race matters, even for those eliminated, because race points could determine where they finish in the final standings (and the bonus money that goes with where they finish).
"Even if we are eliminated, there’s still a lot to race for, for us, for the rest of the year, so we still want to finish strong," McDowell said. "We want to beat cars that we can beat there in the points and finish out the season like we’d hoped to, so I’m optimistic about that because of the speed that we’ve had in our race cars, even though my execution has been really poor these last two races.
"It’s disappointing and super frustrating. We still have a lot of opportunities to get it right. We have some great tracks coming up, and we still have a shot at Bristol, too. We’ve just got to go out there and see what happens."
As the saying goes: So you’re saying there’s a chance.
"I feel good about going to Bristol because there’s been shining moments of hope that we can do it," Reddick said. "There’s just going to be no room for error from the drop of the green flag to lap 500.
"We’re just going to have to have it together. We’re just going to have to be right from the start, score the points that we’re going to need and be running up front in the position to make it into the Round of 12."
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Playoff meter
What to watch for
Watch for the drivers who are on the bubble and have had career moments at Bristol.
Kyle Busch (plus-8 on the bubble) has won eight Cup races at Bristol, while his brother Kurt (tied for the final playoff spot) has won six.
Kevin Harvick (+25) has three career Bristol wins (including the elimination race a year ago). Brad Keselowski (+13) has three as well, including a win in May 2020.
What about the drivers outside the bubble looking to race their way in?
Bowman (tied for the final spot) had a career-best Bristol finish of fifth in the April 2018 race. Reddick (-5) has a best of fourth in the race a year ago, Byron (-18) has a best of eighth in May 2020, and McDowell (-38) has a best of 10th a year ago.
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Thinking out loud
The biggest question of the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series schedule is how fans will react to an Easter Sunday prime-time event. The hope is that with the NFL owning Thanksgiving and the NBA owning Christmas, maybe NASCAR can own Easter.
But Easter is a solemn holiday compared to those more celebratory events. Families are used to doing Easter egg hunts and running on their own family schedules after attending church.
Will there be enough casual fans looking for something on television who will watch? Will there be enough hard-core fans willing to part with family traditions who will watch or attend?
NASCAR won’t know until it tries, so expect to see a lot of evaluation of ratings and attendance. At least it’s a night race, which should be better for the dirt-track conditions.
Next Up: Next Gen
The heat of the Next Gen car continues to be the biggest concern, as the area underneath the seat and frame rails is sealed enough that hot air sits without any flow.
That results in the shifters and the frame rails getting hot. Plus, the hot air generated from the hood vents is entering the cockpit through the open windows.
During the Daytona test, NASCAR experimented with putting ducts near the top of the front windshield, though there would be the concern about debris.
"[The heat] is a big, big concern," Denny Hamlin said after testing at Daytona. "It’s difficult because it’s the way that car was designed.
"The design of it, where the exhaust of it is all boxed in running right under the seat there, is just hot. It’s 450 degrees down in that box, so it’s super-hot. ... They are going to have to really make some big changes to it. Something that will allow us to finish races without having major issues."
Social spotlight
They said it
"Ultimately, some of these new tracks we’re going to, the dates have to come from somewhere. In this case, it was Pocono." — NASCAR VP Ben Kennedy on Pocono losing a race
Bob Pockrass has spent decades covering motorsports, including the past 30 Daytona 500s. He joined FOX Sports in 2019 following stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram @bobpockrass. Looking for more NASCAR content? Sign up for the FOX Sports NASCAR Newsletter with Bob Pockrass!