There’s little doubt that the teams that make the Round of 8 in the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs are all championship-capable.
This year’s contingent seems to illustrate that, with Christopher Bell, Kyle Larson, William Byron, Ryan Blaney, Tyler Reddick, Martin Truex Jr., Denny Hamlin and Chris Buescher making up the field.
Those eight drivers have combined to win 25 of 34 races this season, with Byron owning a series-best six victories in his No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet. Meanwhile, Larson has won four races; Truex, Hamlin and Buescher have three a piece; while Bell, Blaney and Reddick have each taken home a pair of trophies.
Though it’s possible to scrape by and advance further into the playoffs with lackluster results — Truex has had seven finishes outside the top 15 in eight playoff races — it’s logical to believe that each driver and team has been funneled into a position they’ve earned.
23XI Racing crew chief Billy Scott certainly believes he and Reddick have put up a good fight, despite being considered an underdog in the playoffs. The No. 45 is currently on a three-race streak of top-eight finishes, and will enter this Sunday’s Round of 8 cutoff race at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway fifth in the standings — 10 points below the cutline.
The 23XI Racing team has the potential to point its way into the Championship 4, but when taking into account who they’re facing off against, Scott acknowledges it’s no easy task.
“It would not surprise me if anyone, anybody went out there and won this weekend and got qualified in and contended next week,” Scott said. “I look around at these eight drivers and teams, and they’re all championship worthy.”
Chris Gabehart, crew chief of the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing entry, shares Scott’s viewpoint.
“In today’s NASCAR Cup Series format, in my view, that’s really what they crown,” Gabehart said. “They crown championship worthy by making the Final Four.”
That’s the frame of mind Gabehart has operated under in his four-year run with Hamlin, as the two have finished in the Championship 4 three out of four times. Hamlin has yet to win the title.
While simply being present in the final round isn’t the same as winning a driver’s championship, for Gabehart, it’s almost comparable when considering the winner-take-all format at the season finale at Phoenix (Ariz.) Raceway.
“It’s one race, it’s one set of circumstances,” Gabehart said. “You can be running down Martin Truex Jr. with 25 to go in second, and David Star blows a brake rotor and the caution comes out and it all comes down to a pit stop and it’s turned on its ear. Does that make us less championship worthy than Kyle Larson in that situation? Not at all. It’s a circumstance. It’s entertainment.”
It’s hard for Gabehart to say that one race result is an accurate representation of the 36-race season, but he does reap a mental reward every year he makes it to Phoenix.
“I think the format’s better than it used to be, but it doesn’t necessarily crown the most deserving team,” Gabehart said. “The Championship 4 does. That’s a body of work that’s 35 weeks long, and I think it does a pretty good job of typically getting it right.”
Fellow JGR crew chief Adam Stevens, who calls the shots on Bell’s No. 20 Toyota, has experienced nearly every curveball the playoffs can bring and knows firsthand how hard it can be to reach the final round.
“This is my seventh trip,” Stevens said. “Some of them, we’ve basically cruised through on bonus points. Recently, we’ve had to win our way in, and some of them we’ve made by the skin of our teeth.”
He added, “This one’s some kind of in-between.”
Stevens won two Cup Series championships with Kyle Busch in 2015 and 2019. He has yet to lock up a title with Bell, though the pair made their first Championship 4 appearance last year. Bell’s victory last Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway secured a berth for the team in the playoff finale.
“We always knew the potential was in the team and in our cars and in Christopher. It was just a matter of getting it all back out of it, and we’ve been on a streak of doing that here lately,” Steven said.
Larson is the other driver locked into the Championship 4.
Four drivers will be eliminated from the playoffs this Sunday following the Xfinity 500 at Martinsville Speedway, while two others will advance.