With only one race to go before the NASCAR Cup Series Championship 4 field is determined, the playoff picture looks pretty straightforward as the series heads to Martinsville Speedway.
Kyle Larson and Christopher Bell are set to join Denny Hamlin and Chase Briscoe in battling for a title at Phoenix Raceway in under two weeks unless one of the four drivers behind them in points wins, in which case one will be eliminated. The obvious candidate to spoil the party is Ryan Blaney, who has won at Martinsville to clinch his Championship 4 spot in each of the past two years.
But all of the other three drivers – William Byron, Chase Elliott, and Joey Logano – have past wins at Martinsville as well. One of them in particular can't be counted out.
Chase Elliott can channel his 2020 self to earn a shot at his second championship
Chase Elliott finds himself in the worst position of any driver still alive in the playoffs, 62 points behind the cut line. He's mathematically eliminated from having any chance to advance on points (Byron, Logano, and Blaney still have that door ever-so-slightly cracked open). He absolutely must win.
It should be no surprise that Elliott finds himself in this situation, because despite being a favorite of the box score-watching "average finish is everything" crowd, relying on avoiding poor results is never sustainable. The past two weeks (really, the past 10) have proven that for the No. 9 group, and in this playoff format, you're doomed if any level of "consistency" comes without dominant speed on at least a semi-regular basis.
This has been the problem for Elliott's team the past three seasons, in which he's averaged one win per year and has only one race total in which he led the most laps (at Dover Motor Speedway this season). But with that said, there are a few tracks where he has routinely competed for wins in the Next Gen era, and Martinsville is one of them.
In each of the past three races at the Virginia short track, NASCAR's Most Popular Driver has led chunks of laps and finished no worse than fourth. With the possible exception of Dover, it's his best track on the Cup Series circuit.
He's only won there once, but it was an important one, coming in the fall of 2020 when he was in the same situation he's in right now: needing a win to qualify for a shot at a championship. He led 236 of 500 laps in a dominant performance which saw him overcome a late pit road issue to reach the checkered flag first, and then he won again the following week at Phoenix to capture the Cup Series title.
Elliott needs a spark to ignite the version of himself from a few years ago, when he was one of the most electrifying drivers in the field. It could happen this weekend.