BRISTOL, Tenn. — The title hopes of four drivers will end tonight at Bristol Motor Speedway, as the playoff field will be cut from 16 to 12 drivers.
USA Network has the coverage. The pre-race show begins at 7 p.m. ET.
Here is what to watch for in tonight’s race:
Will any of the drivers below the cutline avoid elimination?
Austin Cindric holds the final transfer spot to the next round. Austin Dillon is 11 points below the cutline. Shane van Gisbergen is 15 points below the cutline. Alex Bowman is 35 points below the cutline. Josh Berry is 45 points below the cutline.
Berry and Bowman are essentially in a must-win situation. Berry is in that spot after crashing in the first two races of the playoffs. Bowman has been plagued by pit road issues after running well going into the playoffs.
“Certainly frustrating,” Bowman said of his playoffs. “We had a really good summer and the switch turned off for us for sure. Honestly, it’s kind of mortifying how bad we’ve been. It’s embarrassing. It’s not from a lack of effort. Everybody’s working so hard at HMS, our whole team is. We cannot put days together like we need to. Working hard to turn that around.”
The first-round finale will cut the playoff field from 16 drivers to 12.
Tonight’s race will be the second Cup event at Bristol for van Gisbergen, who continues to learn the ovals in his first full season in Cup. Dillon has won two of the last seven short track races, including the most recent at Richmond.
The challenge for all four is where they start. Only Berry (10th) starts in the top 10. Bowman will start 15th, Dillon 23rd and van Gisbergen 28th.
What kind of impact will the tires make?
Teams still have many questions about the new right side tire that is intended to wear more.
With Bristol hosting the August baseball game between the Cincinnati Reds and Atlanta Braves, there wasn’t the chance to do a tire test. So teams must rely on sim data and what happened in Friday’s practice session to prepare for tonight’s 500-lap race.
“I think not having a tire test, it’s alarming for the competitors,” Christopher Bell said. “It should be very exciting for (the media) and the fans because we don’t know what to expect at all.”
Christopher Bell enters Saturday night’s elimination race at Bristol 32 points above the cutline.
As Goodyear has softened tires to create more wear over the last year, it’s has created challenges for drivers.
“I think the challenge comes in how quick can you adapt,” Chase Elliott said. “It’s not just for the drivers. It’s also on the teams, right? Like where do we start air pressure? How low is too low?
“We know chasing that air down has its benefits at a lot of tracks, not all of them but a lot of them. As rigid as these cars are in particular, as you go across the bumps, you’re basically bottoming out the entire suspension, right? So when that happens, the only thing left to give is the sidewall of the tires and that’s a lot of weight sitting on the sidewall of the tire, especially going down a straightaway, particularly on the left rear. So there’s a lot of things that have to be adapted to those situations.
AJ Allmendinger earns his fifth career Cup pole and first since August 2015 at Watkins Glen.
“Certainly from a driving perspective those small little feels that you have in the car can change a little here and there. So it’s a challenge on a weekly basis. There’s been weeks where there is no tire change and it seems like something is different.
“My mindset is I’m just ready for whatever when I get there. Just as we couldn’t answer the question as to why the spring race (excessive tire wear) happened here a year ago but now we’re trying to make that happen all of a sudden, so that seems a little odd to me.”
Will the streak of different winners continue?
The last seven races have had seven different winners. Will there be eight?
Here are the winners of the last seven races:
Denny Hamlin — World Wide Technology Raceway
Chase Briscoe — Southern 500
Ryan Blaney — Daytona regular season finale
Austin Dillon — Richmond
Shane van Gisbergen — Watkins Glen
William Byron — Iowa
Bubba Wallace — Indianapolis
