NASCAR: The first driver officially in the 2021 playoffs
By Asher Fair
The first driver to officially clinch a spot in the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series playoffs was determined at Martinsville Speedway.
NASCAR‘s playoff system is often referred to as a “win and in” system. But simple math indicates that this isn’t 100% true, given the fact that there are just 16 playoff spots and 26 regular season races.
So with seven different winners in the first seven races of the season, nobody had technically locked up a playoff berth entering the season’s eighth race at Martinsville Speedway, despite the fact that each winner was seen as being “locked in” to the four-round, 10-race postseason.
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The 16 playoff spots go to the regular season points champion plus the 15 drivers with the most wins.
The tiebreaker among one-race winners, if there are more winners than playoff spots, is points.
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This tiebreaker is effectively the same tiebreaker which is used among non-winners, if there are fewer winners than playoffs spots, which there have always been under the current format.
We have never had as many regular season winners as playoff spots before, but this season was one that many thought could change that trend, given the fact that it is the final season of the Generation 6 car. Many drivers who were not expected to win early on in the year have already won, and many drivers who won multiple races last year still haven’t.
Kevin Harvick, Denny Hamlin, Chase Elliott and Brad Keselowski combined for 25 victories in the 36-race 2020 season, and only once did three consecutive races go by without one of them winning. Yet all remain winless through eight races in 2021.
But following the eighth race of the season, we finally have one playoff berth officially secured.
Martin Truex Jr., who won the fifth race of the season at Phoenix Raceway back in mid-March, secured his second victory of the year — and his third in the last four races at the four-turn, 0.526-mile (0.847-kilometer) Martinsville Speedway oval in Ridgeway, Virginia — to officially solidify himself a spot in the playoffs.
With two victories, there is no mathematical way he cannot be among the 15 drivers with the most wins by the end of the 26-race regular season, considering there can be, at most, 13 drivers with two victories.
He is, however, the only driver who is truly safe.
The other six race winners so far this season are Michael McDowell (Daytona 500), Christopher Bell (Daytona International Speedway road course), William Byron (Homestead-Miami Speedway), Kyle Larson (Las Vegas Motor Speedway), Ryan Blaney (Atlanta Motor Speedway) and Joey Logano (Bristol Motor Speedway dirt).
Despite their wins, those six drivers can still mathematically fall out of the playoff picture by the time the regular season ends.
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Will the ninth race on the 2021 schedule, the Toyota Owners 400 at Richmond Raceway, produce an eighth different winner this year? Will one of the single-race winners become a two-race winner? Could Truex, who has won two of the last three races at the track, win for the third time this year? This race is set to be broadcast live on Fox beginning at 3:00 p.m. ET on Sunday, April 18.