The risk vs. reward balance shifts starting at Las Vegas

Early in the playoffs, drivers near the top of the points standings shy away from moves they would consider a risk. Now that they have entered the Round of 8, however, the balance between risk and reward will drastically shift.

As several drivers have learned since 2014, they can not afford to play it safe once only eight drivers remain in contention for the Cup Series championship.

“The Round of 8, you’re probably a lot more willing to take risks to go for wins than you would be in the Round of 12 or Round of 16, because you know that the wins mean more now than what they did in the previous rounds,” Christopher Bell said on Saturday.

“I think the last year of Vegas proved that. I left here, and I didn’t win the race, but by all means, whenever I looked at the points, I thought we were in a really good spot and it didn’t pan out. So yeah, the wins mean more in the Round of 8 than any other round.”

What does more risk entail? It could be as simple as staying out on the track on older tires for an overtime restart. It could be stretching fuel mileage instead of heading down pit road at the same time as other playoff drivers.

Bell has been on the losing side of this fuel mileage call, in particular, as one driver took the risk and capitalized.

The Oklahoma native’s playoff run took a turn last season. He finished second behind Joey Logano at Las Vegas Motor Speedway after dominating the race and immediately indicated that he had missed out on a major opportunity.

One week later, he finished fourth at Homestead-Miami Speedway while Tyler Reddick won. Two drivers took two of the available spots in the Championship 4 and put Bell in danger of elimination heading to Martinsville Speedway.

The Joe Gibbs Racing driver went out and initially made the Championship 4 at Martinsville on points. This did not last, however, as NASCAR penalized him for hitting the wall and remaining against it on the final lap.

He missed the cut while Byron advanced to the championship round after benefiting from some race manipulation by two Chevrolet drivers. NASCAR did not issue these penalties until later in the week.

“Last year I came into this round with a lot of bonus points, kind of separated from the field and felt like we were not in a must win position,” Bell said. “I didn’t win, and I didn’t make the final four.

“This year, my mentality is a lot different in the aspect that we need to win a race, and this is probably my best opportunity to win in this round. So, we’re going to try and make that happen this week.”

Bell is not the only driver circling Las Vegas Motor Speedway as the most important. Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Denny Hamlin spoke about this multiple times on Saturday at the 1.5-mile track.

One reason why he views this opening race as the most important of the round is the time advantage it provides to the team that wins Las Vegas and locks up a spot to Phoenix early.

The other reason is that NASCAR put a wild card track, Talladega Superspeedway, into the Round of 8 while removing Homestead-Miami Speedway. This removes the ability to compete at a “standard” track.

“No one’s going to go do simulation for Talladega, but they are — if you don’t win here — you’re going to start working on Martinsville right away,” Hamlin said.

“All eight — well, if one of us wins — seven of us will be spending more time on Martinsville, where that one is now got an extra week on Phoenix.”

The emphasis on Las Vegas and Martinsville only increases the likelihood that one of the playoff drivers will accept the risk of a bold move. Will it pay off, or will it ultimately lead to their elimination from the playoffs?