With the same guys finishing up front and a couple of big names again experiencing considerable setbacks, an unmistakable air of familiarity hangs over the Chase for the Sprint Cup giving it a feel that the 2015 playoffs may, in fact, be a replay of last year’s postseason.
Putting forth a dominating performance that saw him lead a career-high amount of laps, Joey Logano won Sunday’s Round 2 race at Charlotte Motor Speedway. It marked the second straight year the Team Penske driver captured the opening Round 2 Chase event and earned automatic advancement to the third segment. (Last year, Logano won at Kansas Speedway, which swapped places with Charlotte on this year’s calendar.)
Following Logano underneath the checkered flag was Kevin Harvick, the defending Sprint Cup champion who recorded his 11th runner-up finish of the season, and in fourth was Denny Hamlin. That Harvick and Hamlin each left Charlotte feeling good about their chances to avoid Round 2 elimination is unsurprising as they, along with Logano, were three of the four 2014 championship finalists.
The 2015 edition of NASCAR’s elimination-style format has seen several drivers have their Chase undercut by misfortune — either organically or self-induced — yet Logano, Harvick and Hamlin again find themselves on solid footing.
Hamlin (Chicagoland) and Harvick (Dover) each recorded a first-round Chase victory and have demonstrated the speed necessary to win every given week, no matter the style of track. And Logano, who won three times during the regular season, broke through at Charlotte, and was one of two drivers to record top-10 finishes in all three Round 1 races.
“Winning these races in the Chase is such a big deal,” Logano said. “It’s nice to have race wins, but when you’re able to get Chase wins and rack those up, it seems to be a little harder to get them in the Chase time because everyone picks it up a little bit. It shows that our team picked up what we needed to.”
Just as Logano, Harvick and Hamlin can feel buoyant about their standing, Kyle Busch and Dale Earnhardt Jr. are in an all-too-familiar position.
Repeatedly snake-bitten in the playoffs, Busch is once more behind thanks to a series of incidents Sunday. His troubles began when Kyle Larson, running second, astonishingly tried to weave across the track at the last minute to get onto pit road under caution with 140 laps remaining. As Larson darted, Busch, in third, faked as if he was pitting before turning back onto the racing surface.
Like two magnets forcefully attracted to one another, Larson and Busch collided with both sustaining significant damage, ending what were strong runs for each. Larson accepted full blame and apologized for the blunder afterward.
Things would only snowball for Busch from there, as an oil slick later caused him and others to slam the Turn 2 wall. NASCAR disputed that there was fluid, but Busch emphatically said officials erred in not properly cleaning the track.
“Thanks to NASCAR for cleaning that up,” Busch said sarcastically.
Nonetheless, Busch finished 20th and, barring a rally in the next two weeks, is facing a second-round elimination for the second consecutive year.
“Just can’t say enough about my guys … They don’t deserve to be put in these situations year in, year out, but we are for some reason,” Busch said. “It’s tough and we’re going to have to battle through with what we’ve got right now.”
If anyone can commiserate with Busch it’s Earnhardt Jr., who also hit the same trail of oil and careened into the wall. That followed earlier contact with Carl Edwards that sent the No. 88 car bouncing off Turn 1, causing a subsequent cut tire. The series of mishaps concluded with Earnhardt Jr. 28th and staring at the very real possibility that for the third straight season, his Chase is over before it ever really began.
In 2013, Earnhardt blew an engine in the playoff opener at Chicagoland resulting in a crippling 35th-place finish. Last year, he blew a right front tire while leading at Kansas. He ended that day 39th and when he couldn’t produce a victory the next week at Talladega, Earnhardt joined Busch in getting bounced from the Chase.
“It ain’t over,” Earnhardt said. “Don’t worry about that. We don’t have to go to Talladega and be nervous like those guys that are going to have to play it safe. We can just go hard. We’ve got a great car that can win that race. We can go to Kansas and run great. I like that track and don’t see why we can’t run great there and maybe win the race there.”
Earnhardt’s optimism is admirable and as Harvick showed in Round 1, no driver is regarded down for the count after one — or even two — bad races. But he and Busch have an uphill battle just to remain Chase eligible.
And to win Kansas or Talladega, Earnhardt and Busch will likely need to go through Logano, Harvick and Hamlin to do so — an increasingly daunting proposition.
