23XI Racing — Good news: Tyler Reddick is the regular season champion. … Reddick leads the series with 11 top-five finishes, 18 top-10 finishes and an average finish of 11.2. Bad news: Bubba Wallace missed making the playoffs by 27 points. … Reddick has an average finish of 24th at the reconfigured Atlanta.
Front Row Motorsports — Good news: Todd Gilliland led a race-high 58 laps at Atlanta in February. … Michael McDowell won the pole and a stage at Atlanta earlier this season. Bad news: Gilliland has not finished better than 17th in the last four races.
Hendrick Motorsports — Good news: Kyle Larson has scored a series-best 255 stage points. … He enters the playoffs atop the standings with 2040 points. … Larson has nine wins in 70 career playoff starts. … Chase Elliott has seven wins in 70 career playoff starts. … The organization has won three of the five races at Atlanta under the current configuration. … William Byron has two of those wins at Atlanta during that stretch. … Elliott and Alex Bowman are back in the playoffs after not being in it last year. Bad news: Larson has not finished in the top 10 in his last 13 starts at a drafting track. His last top 10 at such a track came when he finished fourth at Talladega in April 2022.
The series will race more than half a year without an off weekend.
Joe Gibbs Racing — Good news: All four cars are in the playoffs after Ty Gibbs and Martin Truex Jr. each made it on points after Darlington. … In the last 10 races that Christopher Bell has been running at the finish, he has two wins, six top fives and nine top 10s. … Bell is seeded second in the playoff standings. … Ty Gibbs is in his first Cup playoffs. … Gibbs is the only playoff driver with top-10 finishes at Atlanta and Bristol this season. Both tracks, along with Watkins Glen, are in the first round of the playoffs. … This is the 11th consecutive year that Denny Hamlin has made the playoffs. Bad news: Truex has finished 24th or worse in nine of the last 12 races. His last top-five finish came in May at Kansas when he placed fourth. … Hamlin ranks 32nd in the series in points scored this season on drafting tracks.
JTG Daugherty Racing — Good news: Ricky Stenhouse Jr. finished sixth at Atlanta in February. … Stenhouse has top 10s in the last two Atlanta races. Bad news: Stenhouse has been eliminated by an accident in four of the last eight races.
Kaulig Racing — Good news: Daniel Hemric has finished ninth in each of the last two races at drafting tracks. … Shane van Gisbergen is in the No. 16 this weekend. He placed third in the Xfinity race at Atlanta in February. Bad news: Hemric has finished outside the top 20 in five of the last six races this season.
Legacy Motor Club — Good news: Erik Jones has four finishes of 14th or better, including a pair of top 10s, in the five races at Atlanta since the track was reconfigured. … John Hunter Nemechek won an Xfinity race at Atlanta in July 2023. Bad news: Nemechek has seven finishes of 25th or worse in the last eight Cup races. … Jones has gone 69 races since his last Cup win.
Richard Childress Racing — Good news: The organization has had four consecutive top-five finishes. Austin Dillon won at Richmond and Kyle Busch has placed in the top five at Michigan, Daytona and Darlington. … Kyle Busch finished third at Atlanta in February. It was his third consecutive top 10 there. Bad news: Busch’s winless streak is at 47 races. … Dillon has not finished better than 20th in the five races since Atlanta was reconfigured.
Parker Retzlaff pushed Harrison Burton by Kyle Busch for the lead on the final lap last weekend at Daytona.
Rick Ware Racing — Good news: The organization won the NHRA Top Fuel category at the U.S. Nationals this past weekend with Clay Millican. Bad news: Justin Haley’s 27th-place finish at Darlington was his sixth consecutive finish of outside the top 20.
RFK Racing — Good news: Brad Keselowski has seven career wins at drafting tracks, the most of any active driver. … Keselowski has been running at the finish in each of the last 24 races since Atlanta in February. Bad news: Chris Buescher missed making the playoffs by six points.
Spire Motorsports — Good news: Corey LaJoie’s ninth-place finish at Darlington was his 10th career top 10 but first at a non-drafting track. … Carson Hocevar started a career-best second in last weekend’s Southern 500. … Zane Smith has five consecutive finishes in the top 25, his longest streak of the season. Bad news: Hocevar’s 33rd-place finish in the Southern 500 snapped his five-race streak of top-20 finishes.
Stewart-Haas Racing — Good news: Chase Briscoe snapped a 93-race winless streak by winning at Darlington. … Briscoe’s victory ended a 73-race winless streak for the organization. … Josh Berry has started in the top 10 in six of the last 10 races. …Ryan Preece has two top-12 finishes in the last three races. Bad news: Noah Gragson has finished outside the top 30 in the last two races.
Chase Briscoe was among many drivers challenged by Darlington Raceway in Sunday night’s Southern 500.
Team Penske — Good news: The organization led 90 of the 260 laps (34.6%) at Atlanta in February, led by Austin Cindric’s 32 laps at the front of the field. … Joey Logano has led the most laps in two of the four races at drafting tracks this season (led 45 laps in the Daytona 500 and 34 laps at Daytona in August). He led the second-most laps at Talladega (22). … Team Penske has won five of the eight stages at drafting tracks. Logano and Cindric each has two stage wins. Ryan Blaney has the other stage win. … Cindric has scored the most points this season on drafting tracks. … Logano has made the championship race in every even-numbered year since 2014 (2014, ’16, ’18, ’20 and ’22). Logano has never made the championship race in an odd-number year. He won the title in 2018 and ’22. Bad news: Logano has finished 19th or worse in seven of the last 11 races. … Logano has one top 10 in the last eight races at drafting tracks.
The event will be held Nov. 22 at the Charlotte Convention Center.
Trackhouse Racing — Good news: The series is back in Atlanta for the first time since Daniel Suarez won in the closest 1-2-3 finish Cup history. … Suarez has finished in the top six in four of the last five races at Atlanta. Bad news: Ross Chastain failed to make the playoffs. A key issue is lack of stage points. He had 150 stage points in the regular season last year. Chastain had 76 stage points in the regular season this year.
Wood Brothers Racing — Good news: Harrison Burton will make his first playoff appearance this weekend after earning a spot with his Daytona victory. … Burton is making his 100th career Cup start this weekend. … Burton has placed 11th or better in the last three races at drafting tracks. Bad news: Burton finished 30th or worse in 12 of the 26 races in the regular season.
