It’s Time to Think About the Playoffs

Yes, the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs aren’t necessarily top-of-mind just yet. After all, we’re only nine races in — and two of them basically don’t count per se, since the Daytona 500 and Atlanta Motor Speedway’s pack-racing roulette don’t exactly reflect a driver’s performance.

You know, might as well throw out Circuit of the Americas, too. It’s a road course, and we all know that’s a different kind of racing. No one could have expected the chaos that the bumps at Texas Motor Speedway brought last weekend, and obviously, the unexpected extreme tire wear at Bristol Motor Speedway gives the Food City 500 a bye.

Setting aside those five exceptions, really, 2024 has barely started, so Kyle Busch and Brad Keselowski (the ex-champions currently outside of the top 16) don’t have anything to worry about. 

And tell you what, since as we all know, at Talladega Superspeedway you’ve got a ’50-50 chance of survival,’ they shouldn’t be worried about Sunday’s GEICO 500, since that race won’t really count either.

Wait – what do you mean we’re a third of the way through the regular season?

You might say that the early dominance of Hendrick Motorsports and Joe Gibbs Racing has brought an end to the parity of the Next Gen era, but in that case I’d urge you to look at the points table – and particularly, to compare it to last year’s.

Yes, Kevin Harvick’s Sunday best isn’t fireproof any more, so the No. 4 team isn’t expected to make the postseason, but Ty Gibbs has emerged as a consistent threat at the front of the field and the top of the table. Chase Briscoe (currently 13th in the standings) has rediscovered his mojo, helped by a noticeable lack of triple-digit penalties in the early weeks of the year. And I doubt Rick Hendrick would let 15th-place Alex Bowman derail his season with injury again – I wouldn’t be surprised if “Mr. H” had engineered some type of Bubble Boy situation, only to be opened in case of victory (as of last Sunday, Chase Elliott is a free man once again).