NASCAR race at Las Vegas: William Byron ready for Round of 8 playoffs, starting lineup

The casual NASCAR fan might take a cursory glance at this year’s Round of 8 playoff field and squint.

They’ll see the household names: Chase Elliott, the sport’s most popular driver, leads the point standings. Denny Hamlin is in the Round-of-8 mix just as he’s been seven of the nine years of the format. Joey Logano was the 2018 Cup Champion, and he’s one of two Penske drivers still in title contention.

But those same fans might be a bit vexed by who they don’t see: Kyle Larson, the 2021 Cup champion and one of the best drivers on the best team in the circuit, got eliminated at the Charlotte Roval last week. Kyle Busch and Kevin Harvick didn’t get out of the first round.

Instead, when the semifinal playoff round begins at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Sunday at 2:30 p.m., the NASCAR Cup Series will feature a handful of drivers who are on this stage for the first time.

“It feels awesome,” William Byron, who will make his first Round of 8 Cup playoffs appearance this weekend, told reporters earlier this week. “Certainly a weight off our shoulders. This was the goal coming into this year, and I feel like we’ve kind of met that goal. Obviously the end-goal, making the Championship 4, is a ‘success.’ But I feel like we would’ve under-performed if we didn’t get to this point.”

Byron, Ross Chastain, Christopher Bell and Chase Briscoe — half the remaining playoff field — have never made it to the Round of 8. And that’s not counting the relative newness of Ryan Blaney, who’s making his fourth appearance in the semifinal round but has never advanced into the Championship Four. (Blaney, too, is still remarkably looking for his first win this season.)

Even with the parity caused by the Next Gen car, not many people could’ve guessed this group. Briscoe is in the midst of his first playoff appearance. Chastain is repping the young “surprise” team of TrackHouse Racing. Bell is here because of a walk-off win at the Charlotte Roval, the latest milestone in a wild, turn-around season.

And Byron is here, arguably, because of some good fortune himself: The driver was buried in points heading into Charlotte Motor Speedway last weekend before the National Motorsports Appeals Panel rescinded the points penalty NASCAR bestowed on him for a wreck he was involved in at Texas. That helped pave the way to racing for points as opposed to racing for a win last weekend.

Nonetheless, Byron said, this field reflects the “best of the best.”

“The thing about this new car is there have been so many challenges,” he said. “It’s taken a lot of adaptation, a lot of adversity just to get yourself through each step of the way.

“I look at the teams who are in it, they’re certainly in it for a reason. The 1 car, with Ross, they were extremely fast at the beginning of the year, and then adapting to this new car. Some other guys came on in the middle part of the year and showed strength.”

Byron added: “It’s the best of the best of the best, and it’s going to take everything to get through to the Championship 4.”

The 1.5-mile tri-oval at Las Vegas is the first of three races in the Round of 8. No more road courses are on the schedule. Homestead (intermediate) is next weekend, and Martinsville (short track) is the weekend after that, before the championship race on Nov. 6 at Phoenix.

Tyler Reddick took the pole in qualifying on Saturday. The driver of the No. 8 car notched his fourth pole in 107 Cup races and his third pole in 2022. He’ll start alongside Austin Cindric, and Byron (P3) and Blaney (P4) will lineup behind them.

Other playoff driver positions: Logano will start in P5, Bell will begin in P7, Chastain will begin in P11, Briscoe will begin P16, Elliott will begin in P20 and Hamlin will begin P31.

Seventeen different NASCAR Cup Series drivers have won at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, and eight have won there more than once. Brad Keselowski leads active drivers in race wins at Las Vegas with three wins; Logano, Harvick and Martin Truex Jr. have each notched two wins.

Hamlin won the most recent playoff Cup race at Las Vegas last season in 2021.

Other story lines heading into Las Vegas

▪ Alex Bowman will miss his third consecutive race this weekend, still recovering from the concussion he sustained at Texas Motor Speedway a few weeks ago. The playoff driver was eliminated from title contention after missing last week and won’t compete for at least the next three weeks, per a statement from Hendrick Motorsports. Noah Gragson will continue to drive the No. 48 car in Bowman’s stead.

▪ Cole Custer will be driving without his crew chief on Sunday. Custer isn’t a playoff driver, but he and his team were penalized by NASCAR for attempting to help Briscoe (his Stewart-Haas Racing teammate) gain positions on the final lap of race last weekend: He was fined $100,000 and docked 50 points. His crew chief, Michael Shiplett, has also been indefinitely suspended and fined $100,000, and the No. 41 car was docked 50 owner points. (Stewart-Haas Racing announced in a statement that it denies any wrongdoing and “will vigorously defend its personnel against these allegations.”)

▪ Kurt Busch, still recovering from a concussion he sustained in July, announced on Saturday morning that he will not be racing full-time in the NASCAR Cup Series in 2023. Tyler Reddick will move into the No. 45 car and race for 23XI Racing a year earlier than expected.

Here’s what else you need to know heading into Sunday’s race.

NASCAR at Las Vegas Motor Speedway

• Race: South Point 400
• Place: Las Vegas Motor Speedway
• Date: Sunday, Oct. 16
• Time: 2:30 p.m.
• Purse: $7,352,089
• TV: NBC, 2 p.m.
• Radio: PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR (Channel 90)
• Distance: 400.5 miles (267 Laps)
• Racetrack: 1.5-mile tri-oval
• Stages: Stage 1 ends on Lap 80, Stage 2 ends on Lap 165, Final Stage ends on Lap 267

Starting lineup for South Point 400

This story was originally published October 16, 2022 at 5:45 AM.

Alex Zietlow

The Charlotte Observer

Alex Zietlow writes about the Carolina Panthers and the ways in which sports intersect with life for The Charlotte Observer, where he has been a reporter since August 2022. Zietlow’s work has been honored by the Pro Football Writers Association, the N.C. and S.C. Press Associations, as well as the Associated Press Sports Editors (APSE) group. He’s earned six APSE Top 10 distinctions for his coverage on a variety of topics, from billion-dollar stadium renovations to the small moments of triumph that helped a Panthers kicker defy the steepest odds in sports. Zietlow previously wrote for The Herald in Rock Hill (S.C.) from 2019-22. Support my work with a digital subscription