NASCAR: How both Hendrick drivers can still advance

By Asher Fair | Nov 1, 2020

Chase Elliott and Alex Bowman, Hendrick Motorsports, NASCAR (Photo by Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images) /

Hendrick Motorsports are on the verge of a fourth consecutive NASCAR Cup Series Championship 4 with none of their drivers. But both Alex Bowman and Chase Elliott could still advance together — without winning.

Hendrick Motorsports haven’t had a driver advance to the NASCAR Cup Series Championship 4 since the 2016 season, when Jimmie Johnson secured his seventh career championship at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

Based on the current Championship 4 cut line with just one race remaining in the round of 8, today’s Xfinity 500 at Martinsville Speedway, that is again the most likely scenario, with both Alex Bowman and Chase Elliott sitting on the outside looking in, several points back.

Here is the current playoff picture heading into this afternoon’s 500-lap race around the four-turn, 0.526-mile (0.847-kilometer) oval in Ridgeway, Virginia.

Rank – Driver: Points (+/- cut line)
1st – Joey Logano: 4094 (CLINCHED – Kansas Speedway win)
2nd – Kevin Harvick: 4137 (+42)
3rd – Denny Hamlin: 4122 (+27)
4th – Brad Keselowski: 4120 (+25)
————CHAMPIONSHIP 4 CUT LINE————
5th – Alex Bowman: 4095 (-25)
5th – Chase Elliott: 4095 (-25)
7th – Martin Truex Jr.: 4084 (-36)
8th – Kurt Busch: 4039 (-81)

Bowman currently owns the tiebreaker over Elliott due to having a better top finish (third place vs. sixth, both at Kansas Speedway) in the round of 8.

More from NASCAR Cup Series

While this situation has been dubbed a “must-win” for both drivers, that is not mathematically the case. In fact, both Hendrick Motorsports could end up advancing to the Championship 4 together, and it would not necessarily require either one of them to win today’s cutoff race.

The simplest solution would obviously for one of them to win the race and have the other one outscore Brad Keselowski by at least 25 points and Denny Hamlin by at least 27 points, while avoiding being outscored by 11 points by Martin Truex Jr.

But assuming that none of Hamlin, Keselowski, Truex or Kurt Busch win this race, Bowman and Elliott can both advance together if they simply both outscore Keselowski by at least 25 points and Hamlin by at least 27, again while avoiding being outscored by 11 points by Truex.

It seems like a lot and it’s obviously not likely, but it’s certainly possible, given the fact that a maximum of 55 points are on the table in each race for non-winners and the fact that drivers are only guaranteed to score one point in the event, thus creating the potential for a 54-point swing.

What makes this scenario more likely than it seems, despite such large deficits for Bowman and Elliott, is the fact that not only are they both starting with the same point total but the fact that Hamlin, despite the fact that he is not the driver right above the Championship 4 cut line, is only two points ahead of that driver.

So it’s not like a 54-point swing is even required — or even close to being required — to make this a possibility.

Next. Top 10 NASCAR drivers of all-time. dark

NBC is set to broadcast the Xfinity 500 live from Martinsville Speedway beginning at 2:00 p.m. ET this afternoon. Which three drivers will join Joey Logano and advance to the Championship 4 at Phoenix Raceway on Sunday, November 8?

Home/NASCAR Cup Series