By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service

First round of NASCAR Cup Playoffs features plenty of peril

After a dramatic regular-season finale that saw Chase Briscoe charge into the Playoffs with an 11th-hour victory at Darlington Raceway, the NASCAR Cup Series begins the 10-race process of identifying a champion.

(Photo by Todd Kirkland/Getty Images)

Arguably, this is the most unpredictable Playoff since NASCAR implemented the elimination format in 2014, and not just because the first race of the postseason is the Quaker State 400 at Atlanta Motor Speedway (Sunday at 3 p.m. ET on USA, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

“I’ll be honest, the first round is the scariest it’s been in a long time with Atlanta, a superspeedway starting us off,” said Christopher Bell, who enters the Playoffs as the No. 2 seed with 32 Playoff points. “We all know how that can go.

“And then we go to Watkins Glen, which should be a normal race track, but with the expected tire degradation with the tire change that we’ve had, it could be a Bristol-style race where people are wearing tires out really early and struggling to make laps and having to pit all of the time.

“So, that could be another wild card race. And then Bristol, I think everybody is expecting it to be more of the same as what we had in the spring. So, the first round could be very different than what we’ve seen in the past.”

Thanks to a repaving and reprofiling of the track in 2021, NASCAR has adopted a superspeedway competition package at Atlanta Motor Speedway, which produced the closest three-wide finish in the sport’s history earlier this year.

On February 25, in the second race of the season, Daniel Suarez earned his Playoff spot by 0.003 seconds over reigning series champion Ryan Blaney, with third-place Kyle Busch trailing the winner by a mere 0.007 seconds.

That was the high point of the season so far for Suarez, who has posted only one other top-five result, a fifth-place finish at Texas Motor Speedway. But with the Cup Series returning to Atlanta for the first Playoff race, the Trackhouse Racing driver has cause for optimism.

“It’s going to be around 20 degrees warmer than last time, so we’re going to have less grip,” said Suarez, who enters the postseason as the No. 11 seed, with six Playoff points. “So, if you were seeing cars moving around, you will see it even more.

“I believe we had a great car last time there, and we’re hoping we have even a better one there this time. We just have to continue to push, continue to work hard and focus on one race at a time.”

Hendrick Motorsports driver Kyle Larson, the 2021 series champion, enters the Playoffs as the top seed with 40 Playoff points. Atlanta, however, has been problematic for the driver of the No. 5 Chevrolet.

In five races since the repaving, Larson has a best finish of 13th and four other results of 30th or worse.

“Yeah, I don’t love seeing Atlanta in the Playoffs at all,” Larson said. “And even Watkins Glen, for that matter, just because—yes, I like those tracks, but they’re just sketchy places. But if they’re going to be in the Playoffs, I would rather them be in the first round than the second or third round.

“So, yeah, I mean I think having the bonus points and Playoff points that we’ve earned throughout the regular season is nice. But it still doesn’t guarantee anything. You still have to not run into any trouble, especially in back-to-back weeks, and hopefully you can just make it through.”

Austin Hill seeks to maintain dominance at his home track

In the NASCAR Xfinity Series, Austin Hill is the undisputed master of superspeedways, and that’s particularly true of his home track, Atlanta Motor Speedway.

Since the repaving and reconfiguration of the 1.54-mile track in 2021, Hill has won three of five races contested there, and he’ll go for a fourth in Saturday’s Focused Health 250 (3 p.m. ET on USA, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

All eight of Hill’s career victories have come on tracks of 1.5 miles or more in length, and six have come on venues where the superspeedway competition package is used.

So, it’s no surprise that the Winston, Georgia, native will draw a major share of attention on Saturday.

However, Hill will have to share the spotlight with the battle for the final four berths in the NASCAR Xfinity Series Playoffs, particularly the close contest on either side of the current cut line.

With a fifth-place finish in last Saturday’s race at Darlington, JR Motorsports driver Sammy Smith moved past 18th-place finisher Ryan Sieg into the final Playoff-eligible position. With three races left in the regular season, Smith leads Sieg by 10 points—a tenuous margin with Atlanta on the horizon.

“We had a strong car last week at Darlington, where we were competitive in the top 10 all day,” Smith said. “I was happy that we could bring home a strong finish for (sponsor) Pilot Flying J and JR Motorsports.

“I’m looking forward to getting back in the car at Atlanta to continue the momentum and fight for a better position in the Playoff points.”