{"id":40395,"date":"2022-09-25T16:17:02","date_gmt":"2022-09-25T21:17:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=40395"},"modified":"2022-09-25T16:36:47","modified_gmt":"2022-09-25T21:36:47","slug":"rocky-road-ahead-nascar-drivers-talk-upcoming-round-no-clear-favorite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2022\/09\/25\/rocky-road-ahead-nascar-drivers-talk-upcoming-round-no-clear-favorite\/","title":{"rendered":"Rocky road ahead: NASCAR drivers talk upcoming round, no clear favorite"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Kyle Busch, driver of the #18 M&M’s Summering Toyota, and Kyle Larson, driver of the #5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet, lead the field to start the NASCAR All-Star Race at Texas Motor Speedway on June 13, 2021 in Fort Worth, Texas. (Photo by Sean Gardner\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

By Michael Haag<\/p>\n

FORT WORTH, Texas \u2013 Ahead of Sunday\u2019s 18<\/span>th<\/span> annual AutoTrader EchoPark Automotive 500 at Texas Motor Speedway<\/a>, multiple NASCAR Cup Series drivers gave their thoughts on the current state of the playoffs. As of right now, the overall verdict is that there is no clear head honcho on the standings that can be a shoe-in to win the championship. <\/span><\/p>\n

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(Photo by Logan Riely\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

Kyle Larson, driver of the No. 5 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 for Hendrick Motorsports, was first to speak on that notion. Larson said with the upcoming slate of TMS, Talladega Superspeedway and the Charlotte Motor Speedway road course (ROVAL).<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think you can pick a favorite until you get through this round,\u201d Larson said. \u201cWhoever the favorite is right now could easily not make it into the next round just because [of] how wild this round is. Three weeks from now, you\u2019ll be able to pick a better favorite.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

With the Next Gen car and the way the standings are so spread, the Elk Grove, Ca. native said there won\u2019t be a clear favorite until the Round of 8. <\/span><\/p>\n

To add to the madness, the last three Cup Series races have been won by non-playoff drivers, keeping the standings relatively confined and tight. Larson found some grace regarding that stat, as he said, \u201cIf I can\u2019t win, I’d rather see a non-playoff guy win.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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 (Photo by Sean Gardner\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

A different perspective was brought up by Chris Buescher, last week\u2019s winner<\/a> and driver of the No. 17 Ford Mustang for RFK Racing. Buescher said previous results have proved how wide open the possibility of a championship still is.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cPretty wild first round of playoffs,\u201d Buescher said. \u201cIt shows that there was a really high potential for race winners not to make the playoffs this year. Can you imagine if we got down to it and we had not just one but two drivers that have won races that were kicked out of competing for that championship? Sitting there thinking, \u2018Man we had a breakout year and we don\u2019t even get to try.\u2019\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

For Alex Bowman, he said the round is \u201cuncomfortable\u201d and that Sunday\u2019s race along with the other two are tough. Bowman said the field can\u2019t control their own destiny at these racetracks and that \u201cyou have what you have\u201d at them. <\/span><\/p>\n

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(Photo by Logan Riely\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

The 29-year-old from Tucson, Ariz. said there is one thing that can give drivers some insurance despite the wild round.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cStage points are the most important thing going right now,\u201d Bowman said. \u201cWe\u2019re all going to be all-in on stage points, which could create some interesting situations.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Bowman said that although he expects a playoff driver to break the three-race, winless drought on Sunday, \u201canybody can make it happen still\u201d across the entire board for a championship.<\/span><\/p>\n

Back on May 22, 2022, TMS hosted the NASCAR All-Star Race that saw Ryan Blaney notch his first win<\/a> outside of the Xfinity Series and Camping World Truck Series. Blaney said the current round is something you can\u2019t downplay and that Sunday\u2019s race will showcase some aggression.<\/span><\/p>\n

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(Photo by Chris Graythen\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re definitely worried about this round,\u201d Blaney said. \u201cWinning here is going to put you a lot more at ease at Talladega, so everyone\u2019s going to be gunning to win here. It\u2019ll be a dogfight for sure.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Switching gears, Chase Briscoe echoed Larson\u2019s comments about how wild the racing at these tracks are within this round. Briscoe said it \u201ccreates so many opportunities to lose a lot of points that are out of your control.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In years past, by this point in the season there was usually a couple of drivers that were the clear favorites. When asked whether he likes that unpredictability, Briscoe said it depends where you are on the leaderboard. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re the guy at the top of the points, you probably don\u2019t like the unpredictability of it,\u201d Briscoe said. \u201cIf you\u2019re in our position where nobody expects us to be moving on, then it\u2019s exciting because you have that opportunity.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

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(Photo by Matt Sullivan\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

Brad Keselowski, pole-sitter<\/a> for Sunday\u2019s race, echoed the verdict that there really is an equal opportunity to win the NASCAR Cup Series championship. He said parity is no surprise with the new car and adjustments that have been made across the board, but that eventually it will dwindle away and favorites will emerge in future years of the sport.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s more parity now in some ways than ever before,\u201d Keselowski said. \u201cI expect that parity to go away to some extent as time goes by and some of the variableness of the racing to go away.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  By Michael Haag FORT WORTH, Texas \u2013 Ahead of Sunday\u2019s 18th annual AutoTrader EchoPark Automotive 500 at Texas Motor Speedway, multiple NASCAR Cup Series drivers gave their thoughts on the current state of the playoffs. As of right now, the overall verdict is that there is no clear head honcho on the standings that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":677,"featured_media":35183,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11,13],"tags":[491,79,528,166,225,16,435,21],"class_list":["post-40395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","category-texas-motor-speedway","tag-alex-bowman","tag-brad-keselowski","tag-chase-briscoe","tag-chris-buescher","tag-kyle-larson","tag-nascar","tag-ryan-blaney","tag-texas-motor-speedway"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/GettyImages-1323412226-scaled-e1664140112582.jpg?fit=640%2C427","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-avx","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/677"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40395"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40395\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40401,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40395\/revisions\/40401"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}