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Don’t lock your NASCAR Playoffs Picks! Atlanta Motor Speedway hosted the Quaker State 400 on Sunday to open the NASCAR Cup Series Round of 16 races, and Joey Logano locked down a spot in the Round of 12 with his overtime win.
The two-lap shootout ended up making the 2024 playoff opener six laps longer than the posted 260 laps, and Logano was leading by over a car-length when a wreck in the middle of the pack behind him brought the last caution.
Logano now has two wins at Atlanta in his career and two in the Cup Series for 2024.
He sits in fifth place in the playoff standings, but that win means he has advanced to the next round.
Check out our sports betting thoughts about which other drivers will occupy the other 11 slots in the Round of 12.
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NASCAR Playoffs Picks: 2024 Cup Series Round of 12 Betting Analysis | Odds to Win Championship
- Christopher Bell +380
- Kyle Larson +1000
- Denny Hamlin +1000
- Ryan Blaney +1000
- Tyler Reddick +1200
- William Byron +1200
- Chase Elliott +1200
- Joey Logano +1400
- Martin Truex Jr. +1400
- Brad Keselowski +1400
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Locked In: Joey Logano
Book These Berths: Ryan Blaney, Denny Hamlin, Kyle Larson, Tyler Reddick
Ryan Blaney is the defending playoff champion, so even though his average finish (15.8) in 2024 is the worst in his career, leaving him just 13 points ahead of the elimination line, it’s hard to imagine him not finding his form now that it’s postseason time.
Denny Hamlin is the two-time defending winner at Bristol, but an L2 penalty before Daytona took away 10 playoff points, so he entered Atlanta just 10 points above the elimination line.
Expect maximum focus and effort as he pursues his first Championship 4 berth in the Next Gen car era.
Kyle Larson has wins on every non-drafting track in the playoff schedule, and has won the most recent races at Las Vegas and Kansas.
Super speedways tend to vex him, but if he can stay out of trouble there, his run should be smooth.
Tyler Reddick won the 2024 Cup Series regular season championship in his fifth season.
He has one of the fastest case very week, and he entered Atlanta with a 23-point lead on the elimination line. He should also be favored to win at Watkins Glen.
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NASCAR Playoffs Picks Likely Locks: Brad Keselowski, William Byron, Chase Elliott, Christopher Bell
Brad Keselowski has the ability to make a deep run in these playoffs, if he can maximize his points on the super speedways.
The road course races are not his forte. His best road course finish was 13th back at Sonoma, and he has not finished in the top ten in this decade at the ROVAL or Watkins Glen.
William Byron has excelled at super speedways (two wins at Atlanta since the reconfiguration, a win at Daytona at the start of 2024, and three straight top-ten finishes at Talladega).
He has also won at Watkins Glen, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Homestead and Martinsville, so he’s an interesting pick to win the whole thing.
However, that slow stretch in the summer makes some wonder if he’s really a title contender.
Chase Elliott
Elliott loves the road courses, so look for him to push to dominate at Watkins Glen and the ROVAL.
He’s been a consistent driver, finishing every lap but one this season until a wreck in Stage 2 at Daytona.
While he should hit the Round of 12, and likely the Round of 8, the tracks at that point aren’t that friendly to him.
Christopher Bell might be the most clutch playoff driver in the Cup Series today, with two straight runs to the Championship 4. He is the defending winner at both Phoenix and Homestead.
However, the super speedways can be his undoing, as he has six DNFs due to crash on those courses this year.
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Room for Optimism: Martin Truex Jr, Ty Gibbs, Alex Bowman
This is the last year for Martin Truex Jr in the Cup Series as a full-time driver. He has strong showings at just about all the playoff tracks.
At Watkins Glen, he came in sixth last year and unmanaged Denny Hamlin at Bristol back in the spring in a race that demanded elite tire strategy.
The problem is Truex’s lack of wins. No driver has gotten to the Championship 4 without any wins in the season since 2014, when Ryan Newman did it.
Ty Gibbs has some top tens in the last races at Atlanta, Watkins Glen and Bristol, where he led 137 laps in the spring race despite the tire degradation issues.
Since he made it through Atlanta without a disaster, he should be able to stack up the points between now and the next round.
Alex Bowman tied for fourth for top-ten finishes in 2024. He won at Chicago and had a terrific first half to the season.
If he can elevate back to that level, his chances of rolling all the way to the Championship 4 are solid.
However, his last five finishes were all outside the top 15 in the regular season, and he is still looking for his first top-ten at Watkins Glen.
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Maybe Next Year: Harrison Burton, Austin Cindric, Daniel Suarez, Chase Briscoe
All four of these drivers earned spots in the Round of 16 with race wins – and Harrison Burton’s win got him a job in the Cup Series for next year, as his current team had already sent him packing.
Burton’s win at Daytona wasn’t a fluke – if you look at the last three races of the regular season (Michigan, Daytona and Darlington), he had the most points in any three-race span of the entire season, with 79.
However, he still has an average finish of 25.7 on the year, his worst as a Cup Series driver, and he was dead last among the full-time drivers in Cup Series points.
Austin Cindric has an aggressive style on super speedways. Sometimes it pays off, but sometimes it doesn’t – at Daytona, he got caught up in multiple dustups that ended up hurting his finish.
He did make it to the Round of 12 in 2022, but his failure to win in Atlanta means that he’s likely going to have to win the road-course playoff race to advance. This year, his best road-course result has been 15th.
Daniel Suarez
Suarez has a solid history at both Atlanta and Watkins Glen, so he could climb up into the top 12, but he really needs that road-course win if he wants to secure a spot.
Track house racing will work to help Suarez as much as possible now that Ross Chastain is out of the playoffs.
Chase Briscoe rolled to the round of eight in 2022, only his second season in the Cup Series.
He fell victim to Christopher Bell’s huge playoff run that year. He won the Southern 500 to get into the Round of 16 this year.
Some of his best tracks are coming up, but he needs a win to get in at this point.
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NEWS: He’s back for more!@KyleLarsonRacin will attempt the #Indy500 and #CocaCola600 double again in 2025. pic.twitter.com/3DOGuhYgdA
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) September 10, 2024
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