LAS VEGAS – The opening race in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs Round of 8 Sunday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway certainly provided the compelling storylines expected in this late season push for a championship.
Interestingly, the race winner, Joe Gibbs Racing’s Denny Hamlin conceded he didn’t necessarily have a trophy at the 1.5-mile Vegas high banks on his bingo card, however he hit the jackpot Sunday with his series-best six win of the year, and 60th victory of his career earning him the first ticket of the season into the Championship Four race.
Although the 44-year-old driver of the No. 11 JGR Toyota is a three-time Daytona 500 winner and perennial championship favorite this marks his first appearance in NASCAR’s Championship 4 since 2021 – his first time in the Next Gen Era.
And the victory in the round’s first race means Hamlin’s team gets the early-start on preparation for the Nov. 2 championship race on the Phoenix Raceway one-miler.
“I mean, I think instinctively we all question our ability at times,” said Hamlin, who was unusually emotional after his win Sunday. “Even the greatest drivers will always have a moment where they question their ability.
“It’s days like today that are, like, huge confidence boost. You can still do it at a really, really, really high level. It affirms that. Yeah, it’s a chest-out moment that you get. It’s hitting a game winner in basketball, right? The spotlight was on you, it was your race to win, and you did it. They gave me the ball at the end, and I was able to make it.”
His other Playoff competitors may need to replicate that kind of swagger in this weekend’s YellaWood 500 at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway (2 p.m. ET on NBC, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Hendrick Motorsports experienced a vast swing of fortune at Vegas. Kyle Larson, the 2021 season champion, led the most laps and finished runner-up to Hamlin which puts him atop the Playoff standings this week – 35 points above the cutoff line.
His teammates, William Byron and Chase Elliott, however, had more challenging afternoons. Byron, who led 55 laps and ran among the top-five all day was collected in a bizarre incident late in the race, when another car moved to pit lane just as Byron’s No. 24 Chevrolet had pulled underneath it for a pass.
Byron said he had absolutely no indication that Ty Dillon was pitting and the wreck cost the Regular Season Champion dearly in the season championship outlook dropping him to fifth in the standings, 15 points off the four-driver cutoff line.
Elliott had to overcome a mid-race speeding penalty and played catchup all afternoon. He goes to Talladega ranked sixth, 23 points off the cutoff line.
On the converse, Hamlin’s JGR teammates – Christopher Bell and Chase Briscoe moved up to third and fourth overall, respectively, both scoring top-five efforts at Las Vegas.
And that leaves the three-time defending series championship team, Team Penske in the most perilous of positions. Reigning series champ Joey Logano is seventh in the standings, 24 points below the line after a frustrating day made a bit better with a two-tire gamble on the last pit stop that gave him track position and ultimately helped him to a sixth-place finish.
His teammate, 2023 champion Ryan Blaney, however, undoubtedly suffered the worst Vegas luck of the day, blowing a tire in his No. 12 Team Penske Ford that put his Mustang into the wall only 70 laps into the 267-lap Playoff race. The last place finish drops him from second place in the standings heading into Las Vegas to now eighth place in points – 31 points below the cutoff – as the series heads to one of the most challenging tracks on the circuit.
And while it seems Talladega provides a steady dose of unpredictability, there are certainly drivers that usually fare well there – Blaney and Logano among those.
In fact, Hamlin is the only one among the current top-four (also Larson, Bell and Briscoe) to ever win at Talladega. Byron doesn’t have a Talladega trophy but has three at the series’ other renowned high-bank superspeedway, Daytona International Speedway.
Elliott has a pair of Talladega wins (2019 and 2022). Logano and Blaney are each three-time Talladega winners. Among the four in negative points-territory, Blaney and Byron have each hoisted a pair of trophies at Martinsville. Logano has one win too.
“I think it’s pretty clear what we got to do looking at the points,” said Logano, who drives the No. 22 Team Penske Ford Mustang. “I mean, one spot’s already taken up. I think we’re 24 (points) out. Yeah, it’s possible [to advance]. But you have to be pretty special the next two weeks without winning the race.
“Today everyone ran so well, right? All the Playoff cars, besides the ones that wrecked, were top five stage points all day. It’s hard to close up on ’em.”
