NASCAR playoff drivers look for strong start at South Point 400

Ryan Blaney doesn’t believe it is a coincidence the last two NASCAR Cup Series champions have won at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and the Round of 8 playoff opening race on their way to the title.

Last year Joey Logano, Blaney’s Team Penske teammate, won the South Point 400 at LVMS in the first race of the Round of 8 on his way to the title. In 2021 eventual champion Kyle Larson won at LVMS in March and the Round of 8 opener at Texas.

NASCAR makes its second stop in Las Vegas this season as the Cup Series opens the Round of 8 with the South Point 400 at 11:30 a.m. Sunday at Las Vegas’ 1.5-mile oval. A win from any of the eight remaining playoff drivers will make them eligible to race for the championship in Phoenix next month.

Blaney enters the weekend last in the playoff standings, 10 points behind the cutoff line from the top four drivers in the standings. The top four drivers in the standings after this round, which includes races at Homestead-Miami and Martinsville, will race for the championship in Phoenix.

Blaney said winning the first or second race of a round is a “massive advantage” in this round to prepare for the championship race in Phoenix.

“That’s not a coincidence,” Blaney said. “It gives those teams a little bit more prep time. That is huge when you can look ahead a couple of weeks before the competition and get a little bit of a leg up.”

William Byron, who led the most laps and won the Pennzoil 400 at LVMS in March, leads with a 20-point advantage above the cutline. Regular season champion Martin Truex Jr. is second with a 15-point cushion. Truex Jr. racked up three wins and 15 top-10s and won the regular season title, which came with 15 playoff points. But the playoffs have been a different story for the 2017 champion.

He has no top 10s in six playoff races this season with an average finish of 21.3. Truex Jr. has relied on his 36 playoff points to advance past the first two rounds but said the tracks in the Round of 8 have him feeling “really good.”

“It’s been a tough stretch for us in the playoffs, but I think we got some tracks out of the way that we were worried about. Now we’re going to some places where we really feel confident,” Truex Jr. said.

As for the importance of having extra time to prepare for Phoenix, Truex Jr. said a good start in the round is important but doesn’t feel there’s an advantage with the extra time.

“If you run really good this time of the year, you’re probably going to be really good at Phoenix. That’s kind of what we’ve seen the past couple years,” Truex Jr. said.

Of the other playoff drivers, Denny Hamiln and Kyle Larson are 11 and three points, respectively, above the cutline. Chris Buescher (-3), Christopher Bell (-8) and Tyler Reddick (-8), last year’s race pole winner, are with Blaney below the cutline.

Las Vegas native Kyle Busch was eliminated from the playoffs following last Sunday’s race at Charlotte’s “Roval.”

What Blaney and Truex Jr. both agreed on was how costly any mistakes are in this round. Blaney said the Round of 8 is the “hardest round” and any mistakes are going to “cost you.” In this race last year, Blaney hit the wall and spun out, finishing 28th and seven laps down.

“You get whittled down to this Round of 8 and it’s the best of the best,” Truex Jr. said. “Everyone has a good amount of playoff points and nobody’s snuck their way in. It’s going to take a performance to get through these three races. There’s not any room for error or a mulligan unless you can win one of them.”

Contact Alex Wright at awright@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AlexWright1028 on X.