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Photo credit: Nigel Kinrade Photography
Racing

Briscoe, Bowman, Cindric defy expectations to open playoffs

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BRISTOL, Tenn. -- Twelve drivers advanced to the next round of the Cup Series playoffs Saturday night at Bristol. Many of these drivers were expected to make this move. Others, however, rose to the occasion and defied expectations.

Chase Briscoe, Austin Cindric, and Alex Bowman all have something in common. They were overlooked at the start of the Round of 16 in favor of other drivers such as Brad Keselowski, Ty Gibbs, and Martin Truex Jr. Granted, Truex had been in a slump of his own, but he was a former champion with a top-tier team.

Three races later, Briscoe, Cindric, and Bowman are all moving on to the Round of 12. Keselowski, Gibbs, and Truex are all eliminated from championship contention along with Harrison Burton, who lost power steering at Bristol.

Not that the advancing drivers are particularly surprised.

"I don't think anybody believes this, but I really think we can battle for the championship," Briscoe said on pit road after finishing eighth at Bristol. "And I think these last two weeks show that."

The Round of 16 started dreadfully for the Stewart-Haas Racing driver. He was unable to avoid Kyle Larson in a crash at Atlanta and his No. 14 Ford sustained race-ending damage.

Briscoe left Atlanta with one point, but he went out and scored 43 at Watkins Glen. This put him six points above the cutline heading to Bristol.

Briscoe then closed out the opening round by scoring seven stage points and finishing eighth. This was enough to move him to the next round of the playoffs. Now, Briscoe believes there is no limit to what his team can achieve.

"We brought top-five race cars the last three weeks -- four weeks, I guess. You've got Darlington," Briscoe said.

"And we're hitting our stride at the right time. And with this format, if you can just be good for 10 weeks, then you can be a champion. And I feel like we're as strong as any team right now."

While Briscoe bounced back from adversity in the opening race, Cindric and Bowman just delivered consistency.

Cindric posted 10th-place finishes at Atlanta and Watkins Glen while scoring a combined 25 stage points. He struggled a bit at Bristol after qualifying 27th, but he worked his way up to 13th by the end of the race while avoiding incidents.

Cindric's points cushion built over the first two weeks of the playoffs was enough to keep him moving on.

"I don't know what the average finish is for the round, but two top-10s and a 13th," Cindric said. "That's what we need to do as a team and it's something we had challenges putting together, but the potential is there.

"The team did an awesome job this round and I'm proud of that, but everything resets so no reason why we can't replicate that performance."

Bowman and the No. 48 team flipped the switch at the right time considering that they entered the playoffs in a slump. Bowman's best finish in the final five races of the regular season was 16th at Daytona. He finished 27th or worse at Michigan, Richmond, and Indianapolis.

Yet the performance completely changed once the Cup Series headed to Atlanta.

Bowman kicked off the playoffs by scoring 16 stage points and finishing fifth. One week later at Watkins Glen, he scored another 12 stage points before finishing 18th. This gave Bowman a 41-point cushion heading to Bristol.

How did Bowman close out the round? He won the pole for the first time this season and led 32 laps. He scored 13 stage points and finished ninth. Bowman also clinched his spot in the Round of 12 by the halfway point of the race.

Now, he has another opportunity to make a deep playoff run after defying expectations with two of his fellow drivers.

"We've just got to keep it up," Bowman told AltDriver on pit road. "Like, obviously pretty good round for us. We scored a lot of points and did what we needed as a race team.

"But we have to keep that momentum going forward. And obviously making the Round of 8 gets significantly tougher than making the Round of 12."