It's been a tumultuous year for America's oldest motor racing sport. Denny Hamlin was leading the championship for almost the entire regular season, without having won a race. NASCAR comes to a head in November, but there are still plenty of races left and a championship to fight for.
The NASCAR playoffs are split into four rounds made up of three races each, except for round 4, which is just one race. The bottom four drivers are eliminated after each round. Any driver who wins a race from one of these rounds automatically advances to the next round.
Hamlin And Truex Safe To Advance
At the moment, the championship is between Denny Hamlin in first place with 2,127 points, ahead of Martin Truex Jr. with 2,113 points. There's one race left of the first playoff round, and Alex Bowman, Tyler Reddick, William Byron, and Michael McDowell are on the chopping block.
The grid is returning to Bristol for the final race of the first round. Joey Logano won at Bristol back at the end of March, for the first NASCAR dirt race. Logano is in fourth, with a 12-point lead over Ryan Blaney. Both were race winners in the regular season.
Hamlin and Truex Jr. have won the first two races of this round, so they are safe to advance no matter what happens in Bristol. It was a harrowing racetrack, so it should be interesting the second time around, now that the drivers know what to expect.