By David Morgan, Associate Editor
CONCORD, N.C. – Halfway through the NASCAR Cup Series Chase, it’s been all Kyle Larson and the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports team with two wins and a staggering 2.2 average finish thus far.
As the second half of the postseason is set to kick off with Sunday’s Bank of America 400 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, it will be a matter of which driver and team can take the fight to Larson and HMS down the stretch.
Larson explained that it will be business as usual this weekend for his team, starting from the pole after qualifying was washed out.
Like the old mantra goes, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
“I think for us, I think we’ve done a good job of just focusing on our race and trying to maximize it, and I don’t think that you should venture off of that,” said Larson. “Yeah, it’s easier said than done, I think. But we’ve done so well in these first five, so why change?”
For much of the summer lead-up to the Chase, Larson faced weekly questions about his performance as a winless streak reached 51 races before the switch flipped and he finally broke through with a victory in the second race of Chase at Gateway, adding a second win at Kansas.
“We just took a lot of what we learned throughout the year,” Larson said of the performance boost for the No. 5 team thus far in the postseason. “Not that we weren’t, but we were constantly learning, and it’s just kind of peaked at the right point. And then, our team has just been executing. It’s been amazing.
“I definitely didn’t think that we would start off The Chase like this, so just proud of this team. It’s just cool. You can never count out Hendrick Motorsports. It was tough to stay motivated and think that we would get to this point during the summer. But, again, I mean, you can’t count us out.”
Meanwhile, the driver that came into the Chase as the favorite, Denny Hamlin, now finds himself 40 points behind Larson, coming off a demoralizing 16th place finish a week ago at Las Vegas.
For the driver still seeking his elusive first Cup title, it may have taken him a couple of days to get over that finish, but now it’s on to Charlotte and turning things around over the next five weeks.
“I cannot go back and undo those races. I can only focus on winning Charlotte and doing whatever it takes to get that done,” said Hamlin.
“I think that we know it can be done,” Hamlin added of making up the points deficit over the next five weeks. “And so yeah, it’s a 10 race season and we got a little head start to that, but it’s a new season. What happened in the first 25 don’t matter when it comes down to these playoffs. And so, I think that anything is possible and if we go win, we’ll take care of the rest.”
Christopher Bell sits third in the standings (-55), followed by Joey Logano (-71), and Ryan Blaney (-80) to round out the top-five in the points race.
Chase Briscoe snagged a momentum building win at Las Vegas a week ago and even 84 points back in sixth place in the standings, noted that there is still a lot to sort out between now and when the checkered flag falls at Homestead to decide the title.
“Five weeks doesn’t sound like very many, but when you think about how far away Darlington was, it feels like months ago,” said Briscoe.
“So, there’s a lot of racing still left and especially just with the tracks coming up. There’s a lot of unpredictability, obviously, with Talladega and Martinsville, a lot can happen and things like that. So, five weeks is a long time. I mean, if anybody would’ve told you Larson could start 55 back and have a 40 [point lead], I mean that’s a 95-point swing in five weeks.
“And I think when we started this, everybody said, oh, you got to be top five or six in points to even have a chance. And that’s been proven, that theory’s not even close to the truth. So yeah, I think a lot can happen. I mean, Larson could end up fourth or fifth in the points still. You just don’t know. And that’s the thing I think that makes this format so exciting.”
With the remainder of the Chase drivers behind Briscoe in the standings now 106 points or more behind, the thinking would be that the championship field is likely down to those top half-dozen, but Austin Cindric, who sits 128 points in arears, explained that it’s still anyone’s game.
“If the math works, the math works,” Cindric quipped.
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