NASCAR Cup Series: How Kevin Harvick can be eliminated at Charlotte

What would Joey Logano need to do?

Joey Logano must make up 33 points over Kevin Harvick to pass his point total since otherwise a tiebreaker would be won by Harvick as a result of the fact that Logano does not have a second place finish or a win so far in the round of 16. He can do so by finishing in ninth place in the race (29 points) and scoring five stage points in some manner.

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With the possibility of a maximum of eight stage points still on the table if Almirola finishes in eighth place and scores six stage points in the race, Logano can score as many as eight stage points and thus finish as low as 12th in it to score 25 points, which would give him 33 total points.

Here is a table showing all of these scenarios. Feel free to copy it into a spreadsheet and play around with it to see what works and what doesn’t.

You will find out that the only scenarios that can be changed to produce the same result are the scenarios of Logano and Almirola, and, of course, the scenarios of Dillon and Elliott solely because their scenarios are the only two scenarios that are 100% interchangeable in this case.

NOTE: The numbers in this table are point totals, not race finishes.

Kevin Harvick elimination table

When all is said and done in the Bank of America Roval 400 on Sunday, September 30, expect Kevin Harvick to be headed to the second round of the 2018 NASCAR Cup Series playoffs. It would require him to fail to compete in this race and then a miracle for him not to be.