Heading into Saturday’s playoff race at Richmond Raceway, the bottom four drivers aren’t your usual suspects.
The drivers currently outside the top 12 are seven-time champion Jimmie Johnson, Chase Elliott, Erik Jones and Denny Hamlin.
On NASCAR America, Parker Kligerman broke down each of the driver’s chances at the short track.
Hamlin, who is 20 points behind the cutoff spot, hasn’t finished worse than sixth in his last six starts there.
“This is not a driver I expected to be 20 points behind the cutline right now going into Richmond,” Kligerman said of Hamlin, who has three Richmond wins. “Short tracks are his thing, that’s what he’s known for. He’s led (1,659) laps here. ... But the question of the 11 team comes down to, are we going to get the 11 team that was at Indianapolis, which was going to win that race and leading laps? Or are we going to get the 11 team we saw at Vegas, which looked a little lost, didn’t have the speed and wasn’t executing?”
Watch the above video for Kligerman’s analysis of the other three bubble drivers.