NASCAR: Is Chase Elliott on upset alert in Denny Hamlin's tourney?
Ross Chastain didn’t just ruin Kyle Larson’s day on Sunday, he busted a lot of brackets … albeit of the theoretical variety.
It’s hard to believe that many would have had Larson, the tournament’s No. 4 seed, bowing out to No. 29 Harrison Burton in the first race of Denny Hamlin's proposed five-week, single-elimination, mid-summer tournament, but that’s exactly what would have happened.
Larson finished 32nd after being collected in a crash after Chastain spun the lapped car of Brennan Poole. And while Burton had his own issues, primarily spinning at the beginning of pit road, he got it home in one piece, two laps down in 20th.
Hey, slow and steady, right?
Thus would be the beauty should Denny Hamlin’s idea ever come to fruition. How many could have possibly gotten through the first week with a perfect bracket still intact?
Well, perhaps Burton’s immediate family, childhood friends and fifth-grade English teacher.
Because other than Burton’s unlikely advancement, it was mostly chalk elsewhere. Sure, Chase Elliott, seeded 30 because of missing six races with a broken leg earlier this season, knocked off third-seeded Kevin Harvick. But given Elliott’s track record at Dover and his popularity, we have a feeling he would’ve been a trendier upset pick than any 5-vs.-12 in college basketball.
And yes, 10-seeded Joey Logano was taken out by No. 23 Aric Almirola, but Dover is a track Logano has never seemed to get a handle on. A little digging into past performances and, hey, maybe Almirola doesn’t seem like that big of a longshot in that matchup after all.
Unfortunately for us, we didn’t see any of those three coming and missed a couple more to boot. Upset predictions for Ryan Preece and Justin Haley, well, per usual when it comes to our prognostications, they didn't work out.
But it’s not the first time we’ve submitted a clunker of a bracket around these parts and we’ll battle on. This week, we go to Kansas, which was Toyota's playground in 2022, with the manufacturer claiming both wins (Kurt Busch and Bubba Wallace) and four of the top five finishing positions in both events.
That’ll likely be reflected in this week’s picks, which may be the best news of all for Chevy and Ford.
And with those last words of gloom and doom, away we go.
(1) Christopher Bell vs. (17) Austin Cindric
Bell finished fifth and third in last year’s Kansas races and … checks notes … yes, in fact drives a Toyota. Cindric, who advanced past 16-seeded Daniel Suarez at Dover, was respectable as well, coming home 12 and 11.
This won’t be as easy for Bell, who bettered No. 32 Ty Dillon by 30 positions to get to the second round and, as we’ve seen, an upset is one bit of misfortune away. We just can’t bring ourselves to bet on that happening here.
The pick: Bell.
(8) Ryan Blaney vs. (9) Denny Hamlin
For our money, this is the best second-round matchup of the bunch. But again, everything we know about the Next Gen car points to Toyota mastery at Kansas. Hamlin, for his part, finished fourth and second there last season. He's is also a three-time winner at the 1.5-miler.
We like the new-found momentum for Blaney, who was rock solid in coming home third at Dover, but it’s not enough this week.
The pick: Hamlin.
(5) Kyle Busch vs. (12) Ricky Stenhouse
The only reason Kyle Busch is here is because his bad day was somehow better than teammate Austin Dillon’s, with the two Richard Childress Racing entries coming home 21 and 29 at Dover. But, as they say, survive and advance.
Stenhouse was decent at Kansas last year, finishing eighth in the spring race but that marked his only top-10 at the track in 20 starts. Busch finished third in the fall race and has a pair of wins and 14 top 10s in 30 starts, yet the bulk of that was in a Joe Gibbs Toyota.
We want to get frisky with this one, but Busch has beaten Stenhouse at both 1.5-mile tracks this season (Las Vegas and Atlanta) and we just can’t find any evidence that barring an accident, Stenhouse can beat Busch on speed.
The pick: Busch.
(13) William Byron vs. (29) Harrison Burton
What a break! Byron was lined up to face Larson in a battle of Hendrick powers, but instead gets Burton, whose best finish at Kansas is 21. Byron meanwhile has a 60% top-10 rate, going 6 for 10.
Come on.
The pick: Byron.
(2) Ross Chastain vs. (15) Chris Buescher
It was lucky No. 7 for Chastain as he finished there in both Kansas races last year. Buescher meanwhile was 15 and 27.
And at this point we know that if it isn’t happening, Chastain will make it happen. The winner of this one gets the winner of our next matchup between Almirola and Martin Truex. Put those two on high alert when the 1 car is around this week.
The pick: Chastain
(7) Martin Truex vs. (23) Aric Almirola
This is one of Truex’s best tracks and with a win at Dover, the near future looks great for the No. 19 team. He has two wins here and has combined to win 10 times at four of the next five stops (Kansas, Sonoma, Darlington and Charlotte). He also has 16 top 10s in 29 starts at Kansas, including a fifth and a sixth last year.
Almirola meanwhile, was outside the top 20 in both events in 2022. If Truex can avoid trouble, and Chastain, he should cruise in this one.
The pick: Truex.
(6) Tyler Reddick vs. (11) Brad Keselowski
Arguably, the toughest second-round matchup to handicap. Reddick’s Kansas record is flat-out bad, with an average finish of 20.1 and just two top 10s in seven starts. But his new car, the No. 45, won both Kansas races last year and with a premium put on running the high line, one would think it’s just a matter of time before it clicks.
Keselowski has been historically much better and his career average of 12.1 is third among active drivers behind only Harvick (9.9) and Elliott (11.2). That includes a pair of victories.
So, what to do? We feel this one is 50-50 and to say the least, we don’t like our track record in those spots.
The pick (tentatively): Reddick.
(19) Ty Gibbs vs. (30) Chase Elliott
Gibbs finished 13 at Dover but ran much better than that. As we mentioned, Elliott’s career record at Kansas is great but he finished outside the top 10 in both events last year.
Don’t even think about it.
Gibbs finished first and third in two Xfinity races at Kansas.
Stop. Our upset picks never hit! Go chalk!
Gibbs has finished at or run near the front in six of the last seven races.
Losing control, can’t fight it much longer.
