TALLADEGA, Ala. — The Rick Hendrick Express rolls into Talladega Superspeedway, with Joe Gibbs Racing nipping at their bumpers.
Good luck to everyone else in the NASCAR Cup series.
Even at this high-banked madhouse in rural Alabama, which is usually as much of a crapshoot as any track on the circuit, there’s already a sense that 2024 is shaking out as a two-team sprint to the championship.
Through nine races, the top six spots in the standings are split evenly between the Hendrick and Gibbs powerhouses. They’ve hoarded nearly all the wins, too, with Daniel Suarez’s pulsating Atlanta victory being the only race that prevented a clean sweep.
William Byron already has three wins for Hendrick Motorsports, and teammate Chase Elliott took the checkered flag a week ago at Texas Motor Speedway. A third Hendrick driver, Kyle Larson, leads the standings and had won three straight poles until he was booted from qualifying Saturday because of an unauthorized change to his car.
Denny Hamlin, who has two wins for JGR and sits third in the points, doesn’t see anyone rising up to challenge the front-runners.
“Teams just can’t make in-year adjustments like they used to be able to,” he said. “What you’ve got is what you’ve got.”
Brad Keselowski, among the multitudes who are lagging behind, shrugged his shoulders when asked if Hamlin’s assessment was on point.
“I would say the way the formats are for NASCAR right now, with no testing and no practice, it lends itself to when someone gets an advantage, they’re hard to overtake for sure,” Keselowski said.
The 2.66-mile Talladega trioval does provide a better opportunity for the also-rans to make their mark — especially the struggling Ford teams that have yet to win a race.
The Mustang showed impressive speed at both Daytona and Atlanta, which require similar setups to Talladega, and Michael McDowell of Front Row Motorsports added to that optimism by earning the pole position for the race Sunday at 182.022 mph.
He was followed by two more Ford drivers, Team Penske’s Austin Cindric (181.739) and McDowell’s Front Row teammate, Todd Gilliland (181.401).
“This is a good week for us to get a win,” McDowell said. “There’s a lot of great Mustangs starting up there with us.”
Talladega is known for its huge wrecks and chaotic finishes, but McDowell said the Next Gen car has taken away some of the randomness at this place. The idea that one can take the checkered flag merely by avoiding the big crash no longer applies.
“There’s a balance,” McDowell said. “You don’t want to be the guy making big, bold moves and putting everyone in compromising positions. But you have to fight hard for track position, because you may not get it back.”
No matter what happens Sunday, it already seems clear the champion at the end of the season will come from one of two teams.
“It’s heavily on my shoulders to perform every week,” Hamlin said, “because I know I’ve got a team that’s capable of winning every week.”
