‘Way-too-early’ NASCAR playoff preview: Who are favorites, dark horses going into Darlington?

The NASCAR Cup Series playoffs begin Sunday at Darlington Raceway with the Cook Out Southern 500. Fifteen of the 16 spots were clinched entering Saturday’s race at Daytona, when Bubba Wallace captured his first career playoff berth and Chris Buescher punctuated the regular season with his third victory.

Roughly halfway through Saturday’s Coke Zero Sugar 400, Martin Truex Jr. officially secured the regular-season championship over Denny Hamlin and collected the 15 playoff bonus points. It was especially gratifying for Truex, a 43-year-old driver whose first full season was in 2006.

“It’s fun to go to the track and know they’re going to give me something I can go out and win with almost every single weekend. We didn’t have that last year,” said Truex, who failed to win a race last year and missed the playoffs for the first time since 2014. “We’ve got it right now. Hopefully we can have it for 10 more weeks and go out on top here.”

Truex, the 2017 Cup Series champion, is among the favorites entering the playoffs. Following Sunday’s Darlington race, the Cup Series heads to Kansas and Bristol, after which the bottom four drivers will be eliminated.

Who are the favorites?

While Truex won the regular-season title, the Joe Gibbs Racing driver is tied for the points lead with William Byron and enters the playoffs as the No. 2 seed. Truex, in the postseason for the 10th time, won the second regular season title of his career. He won the inaugural trophy in 2017, en route to his only Cup Series championship — a run that included eight wins, the most by a Cup Series champion since Kyle Larson’s 10 wins in 2021.

Byron leads the Cup Series with five wins: Las Vegas, Phoenix, Darlington, Atlanta and Watkins Glen. The Hendrick Motorsports driver is chasing his first championship as he reaches the playoffs for the fifth straight season. Byron, a 25-year-old Charlotte native, also leads the series in laps led (876) and stage wins (eight).

Truex’s Joe Gibbs Racing teammate, Hamlin, is in as good of a position as ever to win his first Cup Series championship. The veteran driver, whose first race was in 2006, hasn’t missed the playoffs since 2013 and has a series-best 17 playoff appearances. But he hasn’t found much success past August. His closest shot was back in 2010, when he was the runner-up, and he’s only reached the championship 4 four times.

Outside of the aforementioned trio, Kyle Busch, Kyle Larson and Buescher are the other drivers with multiple wins this season. Busch, the 2015 and 2019 Cup Series champion, has three wins — at Fontana, Talladega and Gateway — in his first season with Richard Childress Racing. Larson, the 2021 Cup winner, hasn’t won since mid-April in Martinsville, but boasts a field-best 10 finishes in the top five. Buescher’s win Saturday evening was his third this season.

Who are the dark horses?

During the final lap of Saturday night’s race at Daytona International Speedway, Brad Keselowski lined up his No. 6 Ford directly behind the No. 17 car and pushed Buescher all the way to the finish line. A host of drivers were within reach, including Chase Elliott, the 2020 champion and NASCAR’s most popular driver who was looking to avoid missing the playoffs for the first time in his eight-year career.

Keselowski kept Buescher ahead of the pack, and a pair of RFK Racing teammates placed in the top two at Daytona for the first time.

“That’s as much Brad’s win as ours right there,” Buescher said post-race. “That was the right help, aggressive, sticking with us. … Just so thankful to Brad for all those pushes at the right time. Found each other here and there throughout the race, lost each other and got back on when it counted.”

Keselowski, the 2012 champion, hasn’t won a race since leaving Team Penske for RFK before last season. Still, he’s in the playoffs on points, the 11th appearance of the 39-year-old’s career.

Joey Logano is another former champion in the mix. The Cup Series winner in 2018 and 2022, Logano has won just once this season, the spring Atlanta race.

He’s struggled with consistency this year, but one his stronger finishes came at the Daytona 500, when he came in right behind Ricky Stenhouse Jr. Stenhouse, of JTG Daugherty Racing, hasn’t recorded a championship finish higher than 13th in 2017, but this year’s Daytona 500 winner, who has performed well at some of the playoff tracks, can’t be counted out.

Which drivers do the tracks favor?

While Stenhouse hasn’t necessarily been a title contender outside his victorious Daytona night in February, Bristol has been one of his best tracks. In 18 starts, the veteran driver has placed in the Top 10 six times at Bristol Motor Speedway, including two second-place finishes. He performs well on superspeedways, and should he advance, Round 2 would bring Talladega.

Going back to Byron, three of the No. 24 car’s series-best five wins have come on tracks that host playoff races — Darlington, Las Vegas and Phoenix.

Obviously, the round of 16 begins at Darlington, where Byron won the Goodyear 400 in May. The Series then moves to Kansas, where in 11 career starts, Byron boasts two top-five finishes, seven top-10s, 136 laps led and an average finish of 14.0. One of those strong performances came this May, with a third-place finish at the AdventHealth 400, and he also has back-to-back third-place finishes at Bristol.

So, the round of 16 tracks bode well for the No. 24 car. Also, Byron’s best track is Phoenix Raceway — home of the Cup Series championship on Nov. 5 — with a win, six top-10s and an average finish of 11.9 in 11 starts.

Hamlin was the winner of the May 7 race at Kansas Speedway. It’s one of Hamlin’s best tracks, with an average finish of 5.7, good for second among any track in his career. He has two wins in seven races there.

This story was originally published August 28, 2023 at 6:45 AM.