From a NASCAR Fan’s View
Well… the second race of the 2024 playoffs is upon us and there are several drivers and teams in the playoff picture that hope this race isn’t a repeat of last week at Atlanta. For some, Atlanta was a disaster and for others, well, I guess you could say it was even worse.
Take Kyle Larson, for example. Though he just missed being the regular season champ by one point and came into Atlanta as the points leader with the most playoff points, his day went south in a hurry. As quickly as his car went into the wall on lap 55, his standing in the playoff picture dropped like a rock as well. He went from being first in the playoff picture to tenth after finishing thirty-seventh and needing a very good weekend at The Glen to stay as a contender for the Championship, which many thought he was the favorite to be the 2024 season champ. That’s an example of just how fast things can change in this format for the Championship.
Denny Hamlin is another that didn’t fair so well at Atlanta. For whatever reason, he ran in the back for almost the entire race and finished twenty-fourth. That just added to his negative results over the last few races since he was penalized. Now he sits twelfth in the playoff standings and is another driver that needs a very good finish at The Glen to be comfortable moving on to the next round.
There are more I could bring up of how Atlanta changed things around but, I won’t. this weekend is about the road course at The Glen and it could prove to be a real game changer for those in the playoffs as well as those that aren’t.
Taking a quick general look at the starting lineup, there are five playoff drivers starting the top ten. That may be true but they aren’t really the ones this fan and many others expected to be there. I was really surprised that so many of the sixteen playoff drivers will be starting eleventh and much further back in the field. I won’t go into the long list. You can look them up for yourself but two of the ones I mentioned about having a bad race last weekend are starting twentieth and twenty-second. That would be Kyle Larson and Denny Hamlin. I don’t know if that means they are in for a struggle or just the fact that they were playing it safe on their setups and being race-ready for today.
Brad Keselowski is even in a more precarious starting spot. He starts twenty-eighth and another Ford playoff driver, Ryan Blaney, starts very far back on the field in the thirtieth position. Since Ryan is presently leading in the points and Brad is just under the cutoff for the next round, from this fan’s view, I’m not sure if that is a problem or not. I’m guessing both of them hope to finish much closer to the front when the race is done.
I find it interesting that Alex Bowman of the Hendrick camp is qualified fourth. It wasn’t Larson, Elliott or Byron from HMS but Bowman that is starting in the top five. The others seemed to be lacking speed or some handling issues but Bowman had solid qualifying times. It is possible he could challenge for the win today but he does have his work cut out for himself.
Another surprise to this fan was that Ross Chastain won the pole. Perhaps “surprise” is a bad choice of words because we all know Ross is very capable of winning on a road course and he could very well win this one. His teammate, Daniel Suarez, also qualified in the top ten at the eighth position. Both of them are very capable road course drivers and either one could make a good showing in this one today.
I know you’ve heard me say this numerous times but I am well aware that qualifying often has very little to do with the way a race goes and I really don’t expect this one to be any different.
There are five playoff drivers starting in the top ten and the other eleven are starting scattered through out the rest of the starting positions for this very important race at The Glen. Judging from the aggression displayed pretty much throughout the season and the added intensity and importance of the playoffs, I expect this race to be even more filled with that intensity and aggression throughout if for no other reason than the playoff drivers and non-playoff drivers are all going for the win. I just don’t see any of them not pressing the envelope whether in strategy or driving to take the win…
Hey, this is Russ and that’s my view… See ya next time…
All views expressed are strictly the opinion of the writer
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Rusty Norman, Nascarfansview.com and Justafansview.com
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