MOORESVILLE, N.C. — Joey Logano survived a wild weekend at Las Vegas as the winner of last Sunday’s South Point 400 and can begin preparation for NASCAR’s Final Four.
But for the remaining seven drivers in NASCAR’s Round of Eight, the pressure is building heading into Homestead-Miami Speedway for the middle race of the three-race round that also includes Martinsville Speedway on October 30.
TrackHouse Racing’s Ross Chastain is currently second in playoff points, just one point ahead of Chase Elliott of Hendrick Motorsports and 12 points ahead of Joe Gibbs Racing’s Denny Hamlin. That’s the cutline after just one race in the Round of Eight. Below that, Hendrick Motorsports’ William Byron is six points behind Hamlin, Chase Briscoe of Stewart Haas Racing is nine points below the cutline, Team Penske’s Ryan Blaney is 11 points out of fourth and Christopher Bell is a whopping 23 points out.
Bell was the unfortunate victim of the infamous fender-banging collision between Bubba Wallace and Kyle Larson in last Sunday’s race that culminated with Wallace shoving Larson several times after the two got out of the car. Larson wisely de-escalated the situation by refusing to engage with Wallace.
NASCAR suspended Wallace for this race because of his actions.
John Hunter Nemechek will take over Wallace’s No. 23 23XI Racing Toyota.
Briscoe is looking to join Kyle Busch and Kevin Harvick as the only drivers who have won a race at Homestead-Miami Speedway in all three of NASCAR’s top touring series. Briscoe, who enters the weekend in sixth place, captured the first win of his NASCAR career in 2017 at the season-ending Ford EcoBoost 200 NCWTS race and followed that up in 2020 with a victory in the NXS Contender Boats 250.
Busch has three NCWTS wins (2010, ’13, ’20), two NXS victories (2009, ’10) and two NCS triumphs (2015, ’19). Harvick has one win in each series: NCWTS (2009), NXS (2004), and NCS (2014).
Bell is looking for his first career win at Homestead. He scored a top-10 finish there in his Cup track debut in 2020. Blaney was a contender at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, leading 39 laps to close out the second stage and begin the third. However, he hit the wall on lap 229 and received enough damage that resulted in him finishing seven laps down in 28th place.
In seven career NASCAR Cup Series starts at HMS, Blaney has one top-10 finish — a third place run in 2020.
Denny Hamlin moved from below the playoff cutoff line to above it with a fifth-place finish at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Sunday. The Virginia-native has been one of the most consistent drivers in the playoffs this season with four top-five finishes and six top-10s in seven races.
Hamlin is a three-time winner at Homestead, most recently in June 2020.
All of these drivers can dramatically improve their outlook by winning Sunday’s race at Homestead-Miami Speedway. A victory ensures one of the four positions in the November 7 championship race at Phoenix International Raceway. If three drivers win in the “Round of Eight,” the final position goes to the driver in that group that is highest in points.
If one driver wins twice in the Round of Eight, then two drivers advance by points and if the same driver wins all three races in this round, then three drivers advance based on points.
Moving back to the top of the standings, Chastain nearly claimed the first position in NASCAR’s “Final Four” as he battled Logano in the closing laps of the race at Las Vegas. Logano was able to eventually pass him for the victory, but the TrackHouse Racing driver proved that he is a championship contender.
“After this weekend in Vegas and having such a strong car, I can’t wait to get to Florida,” Chastain said. “I was talking with my engineers earlier last week and they were really pumped about the car we were bringing to Las Vegas, and I think we proved how good it really was, so that gives me a ton of confidence for Homestead.”
A second-straight race on an intermediate track has boosted Chastain’s confidence heading to the Florida Everglades.
“Absolutely,” he said. “We tested there a couple of weeks ago and I got several laps in and practiced running the wall, which is great. The team told me they were prepared to fix the car if I got into the wall so I could really go out there and find the limits.”
Looking good in points is 2020 NASCAR Cup Series champion Chase Elliott.
He had a rough week at Las Vegas with a 21st-place finish but is confident he can win at Homestead-Miami.
“The good news is I feel like we have a really smart and talented group of guys that are going to work on it,” Elliott said. “We’ve been talking a lot this week and if this weekend goes bad, I can assure you it will not be for a lack of effort.
“It’s a great opportunity here for us right now and we’re still very much alive in this deal. We just need to go down there and just try to have a solid weekend. Do we have to go win the race? No, I don’t think you have to go win the race, but I think you put yourself in position, getting some solid stage points, being up front and being in the mix. Those are things that are going to hedge your bet of being happy after Martinsville (Speedway).”
As for his Hendrick Motorsports teammate, William Byron, he needs to either climb up in points or get a win in either of the next two races to earn a shot at the “Championship Four.”
“Obviously, the last time we raced there we got the win, but a lot has changed since then,” Byron explained. “We did test there about a month ago with the Next Gen car and it went really well. I think we have a lot of notes that we’re going to be able to apply and have a good starting point for the weekend.
“We’re only a few points outside the cutline, so we don’t need to do anything drastic during the race either. We just need to show up, execute everything we can control and maximize all the points we can.”