Cup Playoff Standings After Talladega
Round of 8: One Race Until Elimination
Up Next: The Xfinity 500 at Martinsville Speedway on Sunday, Oct. 26. Coverage will begin at 2 p.m. ET on NBC.
Xfinity Playoff Standings After Talladega
Round of 8: One Race Until Elimination
Up Next: The Dead On Tools 250 at Martinsville Speedway on Saturday, Oct. 25. Coverage will begin at 7:30 p.m. ET on your local CW network.
Truck Playoff Standings After Talladega
Round of 8: One Race Until Elimination
Up Next: The Slim Jim 200 at Martinsville Speedway on Friday, Oct. 24. Coverage will begin at 6 p.m. ET on FOX Sports 1.
Stephen Stumpf is the NASCAR Content Director for Frontstretch and is a three-year veteran of the site. His weekly column is “Stat Sheet,” and he formerly wrote "4 Burning Questions" for three years. He also writes commentaries, contributes to podcasts, edits articles and is frequently at the track for on-site coverage.
Find Stephen on Twitter @stephen_stumpf
So, let’s see how the playoffs are working for NASCAR:
Trucks:
Riggs, the second best performer all year currently needs either a very strong points day, or a win next week to make the final. At least the dominant team of Heim’s is locked in. If Heim wins the title, it’ll be the proper result. But if he doesn’t, good luck selling anyone other than Riggs as a deserving champion.
Xfinity:
Admittedly not too bad here. Best two teams all year locked in, and the remaining two have been pretty strong as well. Should Zilisch or Allgaier win at Phoenix, not too bad. Anyone else, again have fun defending the outcome.
Cup:
Oof. Currently, regular season champion Byron, second place Blaney, and fourth place Elliott all outside the transfer positions, and far enough back they’d likely have to win Martinsville to bump their way in.
So, the most popular driver (Elliott), the regular season champion (Byron), another very popular driver (Blaney), and a two time champion (Logano), all will likely be afterthoughts in the final.
Meanwhile, if the standings hold, we’ll have a driver so unpopular his car owner has to sponsor him most weeks (Larson), a driver who is also generally unpopular (Hamlin), a driver few care about either way (Bell), and a driver who dedicated fans tend to like but isn’t a household name (Briscoe), vying for the championship.
Are we having fun yet?
Logano is a 3 time champ. But not a four this year.
Thanks for the correction. I almost looked it up, but went with my memory. This was a poor decision on my part. Thumbs up for the heads up.
That’s the unpredictability of the Cup series.