Only a few days remain before the 2024 NASCAR playoffs to kick off. The three races in the first round are all considered wild card races as they will be contested on tracks that can be unpredictable — Atlanta, Watkins Glen, and Bristol.
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In these scenarios, the competing drivers need to be smart about how they run in these events. 2014 Cup Series champion Kevin Harvick recently shed some light on how to approach the playoffs like he used to. After all, he is the first man to win the championship in this format.
For Harvick, the key is patience. Of course, at a track like Atlanta, one has to be aggressive to finish high up the order. If the car is quick then it should not be much of an issue. However, if there is an issue with the car, drivers have to be more careful. It doesn’t mean that they won’t even stand a chance to compete with the other playoff drivers. Race management and strategy will certainly play a big role at the Atlanta Motor Speedway and it will be interesting to see how everyone adapts to their situations.
“My approach has always been this – let’s go to the first one and see how we are,” he said on his podcast. “You got to put yourself in a position where you track position, race at the front of the pack if you have that opportunity. If your car is crap and it’s not handling good and you have something wrong, then you got to go into defense mode and be smart about who you are around, what you are doing.”
This can be crucial advice to a lot of drivers who do not have as much experience running in the playoffs. Even the experienced ones have trouble dealing with challenging situations in the very first round. Those that have a lot of playoff points will have it a bit easier thanks to that cushion. But still, they’d rather not rely on them to go through to the next round.
Harvick acknowledges Atlanta unpredictability
Despite advocating for drivers to be smart about how they go about their races, Harvick acknowledges that anything can go wrong at Atlanta. Speedway races are impossible to predict. The latest example is the 2024 Coke Zero Sugar 400. The former Stewart-Haas Racing driver believes that a poor finish at the Atlanta Motor Speedway could be detrimental to anyone’s chances of making it into the next round.
“I feel as though having this extra superspeedway in there in Atlanta, it just might put you in a hole that you cannot overcome. Because this is a race that you could easily go finish 32nd or 33rd and have one point and you find yourselves 20-some behind and even being solid at Watkins Glen or good at Bristol, it might not be enough,” he had said earlier in a media interaction.
There will be a level of care from the drivers when the race begins at Atlanta. If there is not a clear chance of winning the race, drivers will probably look at how to best improve their points tally. The track is known for drivers wrecking on its asphalt so Sunday will surely be an interesting start to the round of 16.
