A Trio Of NASCAR Stars In Danger Of Playoff Elimination At Bristol Cutoff Race

Saturday night at Bristol Motor Speedway, the first elimination race of NASCAR’s playoffs will pit a three-time Daytona 500 winner against two past Cup Series champions.

The trio is also among NASCAR’s greatest stars in a 16-driver playoff field that includes popular racers Kyle Busch, Ross Chastain, and Bubba Wallace who did not qualify.

So this year’s field is rather depleted, but Denny Hamlin, Brad Keselowski, Martin Truex Jr., and Harrison Burton are all below the cutline heading into the first elimination race of the playoffs. The bottom four drivers from Saturday night’s race will be removed.

So, what is the plan?

Hamlin, a four-time champion at Bristol, has a simple ambition.

“I’m coming here to win,” Hamlin declared Friday. “That plan will remain unchanged unless the scenario in the race changes. I’m going to go on offense straight away, and I’ll be fine regardless of the outcome.

“I just know, that over 500 laps here, things will work themselves out.”

A Trio Of NASCAR Stars In Danger Of Playoff Elimination At Bristol Cutoff Race

Joey Logano is the only driver who has already qualified for the second round after winning the playoff opener in Atlanta. This leaves the remaining 11 positions available, with the bottom four in the most jeopardy.

The Atlanta race and the road circuit at Watkins Glen last week were new sites on the 10-race playoff schedule, which is how Hamlin, a three-time Daytona 500 winner, 2012 champion Keselowski, and 2017 champion Truex ended himself in this position.

Both circuits are unpredictable, and Keselowski finished 19th at Atlanta, the highest of the three drivers in both races. Truex, who finished 20th at Watkins Glen, was furious after the race about the lack of respect among drivers in the field.

He’s retiring from full-time competition after the season, and he decided it’s probably too late to become a dirty driver. He stated that he was unsure whether he would be willing to compromise his ethical views to advance to the next round of the playoffs.

“I honestly don’t know. “I believe it will just depend on the situation — what we find ourselves in and what is going on,” Truex stated. “But most likely not.” I’ll probably race the same way I always do, and maybe we’ll be good enough to finish the job that way.”

Hamlin clarified that the contract extension handed to Wallace earlier this week does not indicate that 23XI Racing is close to signing NASCAR’s charter agreement.

When NASCAR issued a deadline two weeks ago to accept its last offer, 23XI was one of only two holdouts. Wallace has agreed to a multi-year contract deal, according to the organization.

“Nothing has changed on our side on (charters),” said Hamlin, the team’s co-owner alongside Michael Jordan and Curtis Polk. “We’ve said for awhile that we plan on racing next year and we’re sticking to that.”

That was the message Hamlin delivered this week at a sponsor summit held by 23XI Racing for its partners.

“We were quite clear in our messaging that nothing was changing. “The battles we have off the track are over ownership,” Hamlin stated.

Driver exchange
Spire Motorsports and Rick Ware Racing announced Friday that they will swap drivers beginning with next week’s race at Kansas Speedway, marking a rare in-season team trade.

Corey LaJoie, who had already been informed that he would not be returning to Spire next season, will start racing for Rick Ware Racing next weekend. Justin Haley, who has previously driven for Spire, will return to his former squad to replace LaJoie.

Haley’s seat is secured until 2025, while LaJoie is virtually on trial with Rick Ware Racing for the next two months of the season.

LaJoie is regarded as the leading contender for the full-time driver position at RWR, but he needs establish himself in the next seven races of the season.

Haley has driven partial schedules for Spire throughout numerous seasons and earned the team’s only Cup Series victory in July 2019 at Daytona.

NASCAR transactions are unusual because sponsorship contracts are normally connected to a car or a certain driver.

A Trio Of NASCAR Stars In Danger Of Playoff Elimination At Bristol Cutoff Race

“It’s unique, it’s unconventional,” RWR president Robby Benton explained. “Driver swaps and player trades are very different from what we do (in NASCAR).” But I want you to know that everything is friendly.”

Kurt Busch switched to Furniture Row Racing for the final six races of 2012, while Jeff Burton joined Richard Childress Racing with 14 races remaining in 2004. The closest driver trade occurred in 2003, when Jeff Green and Steve Park switched rides.

Is Dale Jr. finally gone?
Dale Earnhardt Jr. thinks that Friday night’s Xfinity Series race at Bristol Motor Speedway would be his last until at least 2026.

JR Motorsports’ agreement with sponsor Hellmann’s Mayonnaise required the Hall of Fame driver to drive the vehicle at Bristol. That clause does not exist in 2025.

“I’m not planning on racing in the Xfinity Series next year,” Earnhardt added. “I’ll be foolish to say I’m never going to run again because I don’t know well enough to stay away from it, and I’ll probably miss it next year and be absolutely willing to sign up for anything that might be beneficial to JR Motorsports.”

Earnhardt, who turns 50 later this year, says he will miss racing in the series next year and “terribly regret that I didn’t race and probably in 2026 find me somewhere that I can go compete in the Xfinity Series again.”

“If a partner comes together with a package that helps one of the other cars fill out multiple races that we have some inventory, I’m absolutely on board to do a race for that reason alone,” according to him.

Earnhardt will drive the No. 88 Chevrolet at Bristol, which Connor Zilisch won in his Xfinity Series debut last weekend at Watkins Glen.

Earnhardt stated that JR Motorsports had not ended conversations on potentially fielding a Cup team.

“You just never know that when the phone rings what’s going to be on the other end of that call these days especially,” he told me. “There’s a lot of fresh interest coming into the sport, and with the new (charter) agreement, it’ll churn a bunch of potential partners who have been looking at the sport and waiting for that deal to happen to see where the monies end up.

“We may be able to capitalise on some of that momentum and those events. We may not. If it doesn’t happen, I’m not sure if I’ll have a huge regret.”

SOURCE | AP