TALLADEGA, Ala. — The elimination race to determine remaining open spots among the championship finalists typically is one of a bunch of math and confusing scenarios.
The upcoming race this Sunday at Martinsville Speedway shouldn’t have anyone hammering on a calculator.
With two spots remaining, there are primarily two scenarios to fill those two spots:
—William Byron, Chase Elliott, Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney can earn a spot with a win.
–If they don’t win, Christopher Bell and Kyle Larson are all but guaranteed the final two spots. If any of the four above do win, it will likely come down to who earns the most points between the Bell and Larson.
Chase Elliott (L) and William Byron, are facing must-win situations at Martinsville.
After an eventful race Sunday at Talladega Superspeedway resulted in Bell and Larson having a 37-point and 36-point cushion, respectively, on William Byron, the first driver outside the cutline.
Byron (minus-36) and Joey Logano (minus-38) have no chance if Larson and Bell finish top-15, and likely would need both to finish outside 20th to have any shot to catch them. Blaney (minus-47) would need them to finish outside the top-30 for a chance and Elliott has no choice but to win.
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“I’m looking forward to Martinsville,” Elliott said. “I’ve got one more shot at it.”
The situation does relieve any stress of trying to figure out potential strategies when it comes to earning stage points or whether to take a risk to try to win at the expense of not earning enough points to possibly advance.
“Martinsville’s not a bad track for us,” Logano said. “We just have a simple point of view at this point: it’s all or nothing. Stage points aren’t going to matter. Nothing else is going to matter but winning.”
All four of the drivers who fast virtual must-win situations had frustrating ends to their days at Talladega.
Elliott’s ended early when he got caught up in a crash in the opening stage.
“Unless we won today [at Talladega], we were going to be in a very similar situation next week [at Martinsville],” Elliott said. “I hate it. I don’t know what you do about those situations. … I get turned sideways and slid into the wreck.
“I wish I could have done something different, but I don’t know what I would have done.”
Logano and Blaney had worked well together to get to the front of the pack throughout the final stage but then got shuffled out of contention before a late caution. The both pitted for fuel prior to overtime hoping that there would be more than one and others ahead of them would have to pit for fuel.
There was only one overtime, and Logano finished 15th while Blaney was 23rd.
“I was too far back to win,” Logano said. “I felt like I was in a must-win situation. So we decided to pit there and hope for more green-white-checkers because I think that was going to be our only chance to win.”
Ryan Blaney (L) and Joey Logano are attempting to return to the Championship 4.
It was a lack of execution that was frustrating for the Penske drivers, who likely would be a favorite at Phoenix to win the title if they can win at Martinsville. But it is now a dire situation for either Penske driver to advance, potentially leaving the championship in the hands of Hendrick or Gibbs drivers.
“We didn’t do what we needed to do, and we didn’t get help when we needed it,” Blaney said. “Now we have to go win next week.”
Byron thought he did what he needed to do at Talladega as he was leading going into the overtime. But he lost his main pusher in Larson, who ran out of gas, and then he got turned by Carson Hocevar coming to the checkered flag.
Instead of the win or a top-five finish, Byron ended up 25th and in a deep hole.
“It looks like all the guys below the cut have to win, so we’ve just got to go there and do that,” Byron said. “So we’ve had two strong weeks, but no results. We’ve just got to go there and try to do the best we can.”
Christopher Bell needs a strong day at Martinsville to keep his season alive.
Running out of fuel put Larson in the situation where he needs to root for none of the four drivers below the cutline to win.
“You’ve got to assume one of them guys is going to win,” Larson said. “They’re all really good there. Every single one of them has a win there. … It’ll be a fight. The point battle between me and Christopher.
“Hopefully we can go execute again like we have been and be up front.”
Bell? He just smiled at that situation, where he knows he has to earn as many or more points than Larson to be safe and advance to the championship race. Bell and Larson had faced off for years in sprint cars and have had occasional tussles in Cup cars.
“It’s going to be a battle,” Bell said. “”[Larson] has obviously been pretty good at Martinsville. The Hendrick cars have been really good at Martinsville in the past.
“We’re just going to have to be good there. And it’s going to be wild.”
Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR and INDYCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass.
