Last weekend’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Watkins Glen International shook up the playoff standings, as the only playoff drivers to finish in the top 10 were Chase Briscoe and Austin Cindric. Both are in their second postseason and have less overall experience than most of the other title hopefuls.
On the other hand, drivers like Denny Hamlin, Brad Keselowski and Martin Truex Jr. all had rough days at Watkins Glen. Heading into an elimination race at Bristol Motor Speedway, they all find themselves below the cut line. Although none of them are in must-win territory, they will need a good race at Bristol to keep their championship hopes alive in 2024.
One thing that Hamlin, Keselowski and Truex have going for themselves is years of experience. Hamlin and Truex both joined the Cup Series full time in 2006, while Keselowski became a Cup regular in 2010. In that time, they have combined for 41 postseason appearances: 18 by Hamlin, 12 for Keselowski and 11 from Truex. Keselowski and Truex also have one championship each.
Compare those numbers to those of Briscoe and Ty Gibbs, the two drivers on the bubble going to Bristol. Briscoe has only one other postseason appearance. Gibbs is in the playoffs for the first time and is running just his second full-time Cup season. Bristol is a track where patience and race management make a big difference, and that gives most of the drivers below the cut line an edge.
Hamlin has the easiest path forward, facing only a six-point deficit to Briscoe and Gibbs. However, nothing has been easy for Hamlin lately. The trouble started last month when NASCAR issued the No. 11 team an L2 penalty for a procedural error with Hamlin’s race-winning engine from Bristol earlier this season. The team lost 75 points and 10 playoff points.
Before the penalty, Hamlin had an outside chance to win the regular-season championship. But the loss of points, combined with a bad finish at Daytona International Speedway a few days later, dropped him to seventh in the standings.
Things got even worse for Hamlin once the playoffs began. He ran a cautious race at Atlanta Motor Speedway after a poor qualifying session. Hamlin said after the race that his goal had been to leave with at least 20 points. However, the No. 11 got swept up in a big crash on the last lap, saddling him with a 24th-place result. Since Hamlin did not earn any other stage points, he left Atlanta with only 13 additional points.
A week later at Watkins Glen, Hamlin got collected in a multicar accident on the first lap and was forced to play from behind for the rest of the afternoon. He earned one point from stage two but lost his track position after crashing again on lap 47. The No. 11’s 23rd-place finish gave the team another weekend they would like to forget.
Keselowski, who is 12 points below the cut line, has also been struggling. It feels like a long time ago that he won at Darlington Raceway, capturing his first Cup victory in three years. The win gave Keselowski a shot in the arm for several more weeks, but since the middle of the summer the No. 6 team has lost its race winning pace from earlier in the season.
After an uncharacteristically slow race at Atlanta, Keselowski had a bad day at Watkins Glen. First, he got a speeding penalty on pit road. On the next, the team had an uncontrolled tire violation. Keselowski then make the contact with Hamlin that sent the No. 11 spinning for a second time.
The following caution saw Keselowski come to the pits again, hoping that he could stretch his fuel to the end of the race. That plan changed when Harrison Burton blew a tire on lap 80, prompting Keselowski to pit again just before the caution came out.
That pit stop set Keselowski up with fresh tires for the final laps of the race, but it all came undone on lap 84 when contact with Joey Logano sent Keselowski across the track into William Byron’s path. Byron slammed into Keselowski and the contact launched the nose of the No. 24 into the air. Both drivers managed to finish the race, but Keselowski’s 26th-place result leaves him in a tough spot heading to Bristol.
Then there is Truex, whose final full-time Cup season is quickly coming unraveled. Truex’s 20th-place finish at Watkins Glen is his best result in the last seven races, a string of events where mechanical failures and wrecks have derailed the No. 19 at every turn. Truex was lucky just to make the playoffs after crashing out of the Southern 500 two laps into the race. Atlanta brought even more misery, with Truex getting collected in a crash on lap 205 and being relegated to 35th.
Watkins Glen seemed like it could be a positive break for Truex, who qualified on the outside pole. The No. 19 picked up 10 valuable points by winning the first stage, but Truex’s car did not have the same level of speed once he got back in traffic. After getting bounced around during the closing laps of the race, he had little to show for his efforts, trailing the bubble drivers by 14 points.
The only playoff driver behind Truex in points is Burton, who is 20 below the cut line and faces steep odds to advance to the next round of the playoffs.
Along with its usual dose of chaos, Bristol is going to feature a fascinating battle of experience (Hamlin, Keselowski and Truex) versus youth (Gibbs, Briscoe and Burton) to determine who reaches the second round of the playoffs. Chances are good that at least one of the veterans will find a way forward, even when factoring in their recent struggles.
Whether it is Hamlin trying to win a long-awaited title, Keselowski making his mark as an owner/driver or Truex fighting to end his career as the champion, all three still have a lot for which to race. An evening of 500 laps at Bristol will decide which of those dreams continue.
Bryan began writing for Frontstretch in 2016. He has penned Up to Speed for the past eight years. A lifelong student of auto racing, Bryan is a published author and automotive historian. He is a native of Columbus, Ohio and currently resides in Southern Kentucky.