The question came two weeks ago, before the playoffs started, before things unraveled for regular-season champion Martin Truex Jr.
It was about the stress of the postseason. Two weeks ago, Truex had little stress. While the gap between first and the first driver outside a transfer spot was the closest since 2017, Truex was confident ahead of his journey for a second series title.
After an ill-handling car at Darlington and a punctured tire that sent him into the wall at Kansas, Truex faces elimination Saturday night at Bristol Motor Speedway. No regular-season champion has been eliminated this early in the playoffs.
That question about stress in the postseason? This is how Truex answered it:
“You’ve got to get all you can, but you can’t try too hard,” he said. “You can’t try to do something you don’t normally do or be somebody you’re not.”
Those are words Truex will have to remember ahead of Saturday’s cutoff race at Bristol (7:30 p.m. ET on USA Network).
Complicating matters is his performance at this track. Truex has failed to finish more races (five) than he’s placed in the top 10 (four) at Bristol. He was 33rd in this race a year ago after a power steering failure, an issue that affected multiple Toyota teams in that race.
But Truex isn’t the only former champion facing elimination.
Kevin Harvick holds the final transfer spot by seven points on Truex and seeks to avoid a first-round elimination for a second year in a row. Reigning Cup champion Joey Logano is 12 points ahead of Truex. No reigning champion has been eliminated since this format debuted in 2017.
Logano’s position would have been more precarious had crew chief Paul Wolfe not called for a two-tire stop before the overtime restart last weekend at Kansas. Logano was 15th before the caution. He restarted third and finished fifth. Those 10 points gained could be critical in determining if Logano makes it to the next round.
Last year’s Bristol night race marked the first time since the playoffs debuted in 2014 that two Cup champions were eliminated in the first round: Kyle Busch and Harvick.
Busch is 24 points ahead of Truex this year. While it’s no guarantee that Busch is headed to the second round, he’s in a better spot than he was a year ago.
He knows how challenging Saturday will be.
“Tighter points is going to mean tighter races,” Busch said ahead of the playoffs. “It’s going to mean tighter opportunities on pit road to excel or to go backwards if you make mistakes.”
One change for Busch is that he will have a new pit crew starting this weekend. He and teammate Austin Dillon will switch pit crew members. Only their fuelers will remain the same.
2. Closer eye on restarts?
Denny Hamlin was vocal about the final restart after last weekend’s race at Kansas, and Ryan Blaney also spoke up this week about how the field was strung out approaching the restart zone.
NASCAR typically tells drivers to remain close on restarts to prevent anyone from getting an unfair advantage. But on the final restart of last weekend’s Cup race at Kansas, Kyle Larson, restarting on the outside of the fourth row, lagged back in an effort to get a run. Hamlin, starting a row ahead of Larson, also lagged back to prevent Larson from having such an advantage.
Blaney said the field was not as tight as it could have been on that final restart.
“No one was packed up when the pace car pulled off or even before that, and I couldn’t really tell how far (William Byron) was away from the guy in front of him because I’m up (Byron’s) bumper and then he speeds up and by the time I catch up I’m already 10 car lengths behind the restart,” Blaney said.
“I feel like in other series their cars, short tracks, they’ll throw a yellow if they think the leader went early, if the restart was jumbled, if someone is laying back. If you’re not gonna give penalties, do you just reset and do another restart? Do you give that guy a warning or you just penalize him right away? So there are certain series that do it different ways.
“I feel like they just have to really stay on the restarts and start penalizing people if they’re doing that stuff. NASCAR reminds us all the time, but we saw it be pretty ridiculous at Kansas and nothing has been done about it, so until you start slapping wrists everybody is gonna keep doing it.”
3. One last time
The start of the Xfinity Series playoffs Friday night marks the the final seven races Josh Berry will drive for JR Motorsports. Berry moves to the Cup Series next year to take over the No. 4 car for Stewart-Haas Racing after Kevin Harvick’s retirement.
A relationship that started with Berry racing against Dale Earnhardt Jr. and others online led to Berry moving from Tennessee to North Carolina to race for JR Motorsports’ Late Model program.
Berry made his first Xfinity start in 2014, running two races that year. He ran one race in 2015, scoring his first top 10. Earnhardt spent part of his time in the media center after that race talking about Berry and trying to find a sponsor so Berry could run the full season. Nothing came for years. It wasn’t until 2022 that Berry ran the full season, finishing fourth in the standings.
“I’m extremely grateful for all the opportunities that I’ve had at JR Motorsports,” Berry said. “They changed my life. Dale changed my life. … Everybody there has had an influence on me. (They) took me from probably the point where I wasn’t even going to race anything anymore to racing a Late Model car and having a tremendous amount of success.
“We accomplished a lot of amazing things in that car and had a lot of fun. Then even for that to translate into the Xfinity Series and soon to be the Cup Series is not something that I ever really expected out of it.”
4. Fire safety
RFK Racing co-owner Brad Keselowski said his team has implemented a new training policy for putting out fires after a fire in Chris Buescher’s pit stall during the Southern 500.
A spark landed on spilled fuel near the left rear of the car and set off the fire. No one was injured and the pit stop was completed.
“I don’t know if we’re ever going to get away from having fires,” Keselowski said. “It would take a significant design change to do so. But we can try to mitigate the damage and try to put them out as fast as possible. I think our focus has been more internal with what do we do to put out a fire when it happens, and what do we do to prevent someone from getting hurt when it happens.”
As for what caused the spark that led to the fire, Keselowski said: “There’s one big nut rather than five little nuts, which is a change. The socket needed has many different points so the shower of sparks is different. Then last but not least – and this may be the most important – whether it be the Xfinity car or Truck, the old wheel we used to compete with had a really deep dish to it.
“The sparks would tend to roll in that dish and stay inside the wheel assembly, whereas this car has a really shallow dish to the wheel, and it tends to shoot out the sparks or expel the sparks onto the ground, where there’s going to be a little fuel spillage.”
“I’m sitting there and I’m just thinking… I’ve got to finish this stop.”
— RFK Racing (@RFKracing) September 5, 2023
We sat down with Dalton Leonard (rear changer) and Nicholas Patterson (jackman) for the No. 17 car to get their perspectives on Saturday night’s fiery pit stop 🔥🛞 pic.twitter.com/31DUxq4WUG
5. Playoff woes
Only three of the 16 Cup playoff drivers have not had significant issues in the first two races of the postseason. Those three are Brad Keselowski, Kyle Larson and Tyler Reddick.
Here’s a look at some of the problems other playoff drivers have had in the playoffs:
Loose wheel — Denny Hamlin (Darlington), Ryan Blaney (Kansas), Chris Buescher (Kansas), Martin Truex Jr. (Darlington), Christopher Bell (Kansas)
Pit road penalty — Ross Chastain (Kansas, crew over the wall too soon), Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (Darlington, speeding)
Accident — Kyle Busch (Darlington, Kansas practice session), Denny Hamlin (Darlington), Martin Truex Jr. (Darlington, Kansas), Christopher Bell (Darlington), Bubba Wallace (Darlington spin, Kansas), William Byron (Kansas spin)