William Byron doesn’t have to worry about the next two races in the Round of 12. His win at Texas automatically reserves him a spot into the third of four rounds of the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series playoffs.

Denny Hamlin (+37), Chris Buescher (+22), Christopher Bell (+20), Martin Truex Jr. (+19), Ross Chastain (+12), Brad Keselowski (+8) and Kyle Larson (+2) are on the positive side of the cutline. Can they remain there over the next two weeks?

Bubba Wallace (-2), Tyler Reddick (-3), Ryan Blaney (-11) and Kyle Busch (-17) will try to bump their ways back in.

First up is Talladega on Sunday. Among the bottom 4, 3 of which have won at Talladega. All recently too. Wallace, Blaney and Busch have combined to have won half of the last 8 races on the 2.66-mile Alabama superspeedway.

Blaney won this race in 2019. Wallace won it in 2021. Busch won this past year’s spring race. But, even if you look at drivers already in, Keselowski won in the 2021 spring race. Chastain won the spring race a year later. Hamlin won the 2020 playoff race.

The only playoff drivers to have not won here since 2019 are Byron, Buescher, Bell, Truex Jr., Larson and Reddick.

Buescher and Byron though won the last two superspeedway races on the season. Byron in Atlanta and Buescher at Daytona.

That leaves Bell, Truex, Larson and Reddick in danger. Neither are particularly good here either.

Truex Jr. has had just three top five finishes here since 2007. His last 12 finishes there are 40th, 35th, 23rd, 26th, 23rd, 20th, 24th, 23rd, 31st, 12th fifth, 26th and 27th respectively. He’s only scored the 17th most points on superspeedway’s too.

Combine that with being 0-for-64 at Daytona and that’s counting the Clash and Duels and now 0-for-4 at Atlanta, he’s 0-for-105 on drafting tracks.

Larson’s only 1-for-40 for top 5 finishes. In fact, his last five finishes at Talladega are 39th, 40th, 40th, 37th, fourth, 18th and 33rd respectively.

Bell finished 34th, 23rd, 22nd, 19th and 36th on these tracks last season. Despite being third in Daytona, third in Atlanta and eighth here this spring, I’m still skeptical. His spring Talladega finishes prior to 2023 were: 29th, 17th and 22nd respectively. His Fall finishes are 39th, fifth and 17th. That’s why I’ll punt despite the sixth most points scored on superspeedways this season.

Reddick won an Xfinity Series race at ‘Dega as well as having two straight seventh place finishes on the 2.66-mile track before being 39th, 39th, 28th, 16th respectively. He also crashed out and finished 39th in the Daytona 500 too and was 25th last month.

Toyota’s have won 2 of the last 3 playoff races here but they’ve struggled on superspeedway’s with this Next Gen.

Ford had won 11 of 14 races at Talladega then Chevy has gone out to win three straight now. By comparison, Toyota has won two of the last three Fall races but has only won three times in the last 28 races overall. Two of which were won by Denny Hamlin.

    Ford has also dominated laps led this season on tracks.
        They led 122 of 212 in Daytona 500 and 110 of 163 laps in the Coke Zero Sugar 400.
        They led 88 of 196 in Talladega
        They led 221 of 260 in Atlanta 1 and 145 of 185 in Atlanta 2
        That’s 686 of 1,018 (67.3%) of all laps led on these tracks by the blue ovals.

However, they’re 2-for-5 this year.

    Chevy is now 3-for-5 this year on superspeedway’s and went 5-for-6 last year. However, even being 3-for-5 this year, they led a lot less of laps than Ford. They led a combined 174 laps on these tracks this season but won three races. By comparison, Toyota has led 157. 

Ford’s are leading, Chevy’s are winning and Toyota’s are just there.

Also, six times has a non playoff driver on the playoff race here. However, in this win and your in format, they playoff drivers are 8-for-9.

In fact, 4 of the last 5 Talladega playoff winners were outside the top eight in the playoff standings entering Talladega.

That truly bodes well for Blaney.

The Team Penske driver has an astounding four Top-2 finishes in his last eight tries at Talladega including a pair of wins (2019, 2020) at that. On superspeedway’s this season, he’s finished eight, seventh, second, ninth and 36th at Daytona. He’s scored the seventh most points (149) on superspeedway’s this season and has led fourth most laps (77).

Even Keselowski too. He was fifth in the spring, second in last month’s Coke Zero Sugar 400 and has won six times at Talladega, including the spring of 2021. He was also runner-up that Fall too. Keselowski has the most superspeedway points (188) and second most laps led (116) on these tracks this season with finishes of second, fifth, sixth, second in the last four. On the season, he has five straight Top-10 finishes.

I think the win comes down to these two.

For the ROVAL, Truex should have won the inaugural race, was 7th in the two races after but since has finished 29th and 17th the last 2 years. He’s also finished 17th, first, 32nd, seventh, sixth on road courses this season. Last year, he finished 7th, 26th, 13th, 21st, 23rd and 17th on them.

That’s why he’s on upset alert in my book.

Similar for Larson.

Yes he won in 2021, but he was outside the top 30 last year and has finished 14th, eighth, fourth, eighth and 26th on road races this season too.

The margin for error is smaller in this round with 4 less drivers. That’s why the regular season can only get you so far in the playoffs because you the pool of drivers grows smaller but more talented too.

I think both could be out.

For Busch, while he won in the spring, he’s only 2-for-36 in trips to victory lane. Busch’s last nine finishes in the Fall Talladega race have been 11th or worse including his last six being 30th, 27th, 26th, 19th, 27th, 27th and 20th respectively. He was 32nd, 18th, third and first in the last four spring races too. I don’t foresee a sweep this weekend despite having the third most points scored (160) on superspeedways. No one has swept the pair of Talladega race since 2007.

The ROVAL he is good at, but is he going to be too far behind?

Where Reddick lacks at Talladega, he gains on the ROVAL. Wallace won here in 2021 and was runner-up in the 2021 Daytona 500 too. If he can stay out of trouble, the odds are good for a win on Sunday. My only pause is the fact that his win in 2021 is his only finish better than 14th too here in his 11 Cup tries. His NXS finishes were 31st, 20th, 13th and 13th respectively. On superspeedways this season, he’s finished 20th, 27th, 28th, 25th, 12th. He’s accumulated just the 22nd most points (90) on them. He’s not had a top 10 in any of the five road course races this season either.

I think he, Truex and Larson could be out. Who’s the fourth?

Keselowski is good on superspeedway’s but terrible on road courses. Chastain and Bell are starting to find their grooves again and Buescher and Hamlin are far enough up and good enough at the two tracks left to get by.

It’s down to Keselowski vs. Reddick I feel. Can Keselowski score enough points on Sunday to not lose as much next Sunday?