Surprises Aplenty For NASCAR’s Playoff Drivers After the Bristol Night Race

There were a couple of shocking surprises when NASCAR trimmed its 16-driver Playoff field to 12 in Saturday night’s Bass Pro Shops 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway. Michael McDowell, Aric Almirola, Tyler Reddick, and former champion Kurt Busch didn’t finish well enough to advance to the upcoming Round 2 races at Las Vegas, Talladega, and Charlotte.

Kyle Larson won the 500-lapper over Kevin Harvick, William Byron, Ryan Blaney, and Alex Bowman on the half-mile, high-banked, concrete oval in eastern Tennessee. It was a relatively tame Bristol race, with only eight cautions for 71 laps, three of them “administrative cautions.” Only 13 of the 38 starters – far fewer than usual – were involved in spins or contact to some extent. Larson led seven times for a race-high 175 laps, including the final four after passing Harvick in heavy traffic. It was his series-leading sixth victory this year, his first in 13 career Bristol starts.

As is traditional at Playoff cutoff races, 500-lapper itself wasn’t as compelling as the post-race standings. That was especially true Saturday night, when this year’s Daytona 500 winner, a former champion, a Richard Childress Racing driver, and one from Stewart-Haas Racing were eliminated.

When the race began, Darlington winner Denny Hamlin, Richmond winner Martin Truex Jr., and regular-season champion Larson were already assured of moving into Round 2. Ten others were at or above the cut line of 2,053 points, six of them former Cup Series champions:

Joey Logano was 40 points to the good, Ryan Blaney was up 28, Harvick was 25 above the line, and Elliott was 19 above. Christopher Bell was up by 17 and Brad Keselowski was up by 13. Eight-time Bristol winner Kyle Busch was eight above, Almirola was three up, and six-time Bristol winner Kurt Busch was tied with Bowman for 12th, the final transfer spot.

Reddick was five points below the line, Byron was 18 below, and McDowell was 38 below. Based on his sixth place at Darlington in the first Playoff race, Kurt Busch held the tiebreak over Bowman, whose best finish in the first two races was 12th at Richmond last weekend. As things turned out, that tiebreaker never came into play as Byron beat Busch by 16 positions to easily advance and leave Busch behind. Byron’s fifth place run was his seventh top five of the season matching his 2019 season when he also had seven top five finishes; this one however came as a very opportune time.

Midway through the 500 laps Logano, Blaney, and Harvick had scored enough stage points to clinch their way into Round 2. Shortly afterward, Elliott had enough to points to advance with them. And by the time the checkered waved, Bell, Byron, Kyle Busch, Keselowski, and Bowman also had advanced.

McDowell was the longest of this year’s Playoff longshot. He was in the right place at the right time to win the season-opening Daytona 500 when most of the drivers ahead of him crashed out on the last lap. That was the first of only two top-5s this year (the other was a third at Talladega in the spring) and those were two of only five in his 386-start career.

He was a high-teen runner most of the year, averaging starting 17th and finishing 21st. Even with the 500 victory, he was going to finish 18th-22nd in the 16 regular-season races. His Playoff hopes virtually disappeared with his 37th at Darlington to open Round 1 and his 28th last weekend at Richmond. He went into Bristol 16th among the playoff drivers, 38 points below the cut line. His only real chance to advance was by winning on Saturday night, and his 24th-place finish wasn’t nearly enough.

Based on his six career BMS victories, Kurt Busch’s unusual 19th-place performance was one of the night’s biggest surprises. He dropped back at the start and seldom got higher than the mid- to-high teens. He went from being squarely on the cutoff line to falling six points shy of advancing. “That was not a championship-type effort,” Busch said. “We missed it big time. We had bad luck last week and we have no shot at a championship this year. We have to race for pride, dignity and honor for the next few weeks.”

Almirola’s crew made a valiant effort to fix an oil leak that appeared at lap 175. He was easily above the cut line most of the night, but several pit stops to seal the leak dropped him down the scoring ladder. He ended up a lead-lap 18th, but that wasn’t quite enough as he missed advancing by six points. “Our season as a whole was not what we wanted,” he said. “We went to Loudon and won and had a renewed sense of energy going into the Playoffs. We thought we were going to do everything we needed in this first round to transfer to the next round.”

Reddick and his RCR crew didn’t do anything especially wrong … but they didn’t do anything especially right, either. His lead-lap 12th-place finish left him two points from advancing into Round 2. “It stinks, but we still get to go race the last six or seven races,” he said afterward.” Our starting spots and pit stall won't be as good, but everything else on the racetrack will be. We'll make the most out of those races.”

Round 2 with 12 drivers begins Sunday at Las Vegas, then proceeds on consecutive weekends to Talladega, then the Roval at Charlotte Motor Speedway. That mini-series of three races will trim the 12-driver championship Playoff field to eight.