Is Chase Elliott on high alert in Denny Hamlin's tournament?

Ross Chastain not only ruined Kyle Larson’s day on Sunday, he broke a lot of parentheses… albeit of the theoretical variety.

It’s hard to believe many would have had Larson, the tournament’s No. 4 seed, losing to No. 29 Harrison Burton in the first race of the five-week single-elimination tournament proposed by Denny Hamlin in the middle. summer, but that’s exactly what would have happened.

Larson finished 32nd after being recovered in a crash after Chastain spun Brennan Poole’s lapped car. And while Burton had his own troubles, mostly spinning at the start of pit road, he brought it home in one piece, two laps down on 20th.

Hey, slow and steady, right?

Such would be the beauty if Denny Hamlin’s idea were to come to fruition. How many could have spent the first week with a perfect parenthesis still intact?

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Well, maybe Burton’s immediate family, childhood friends, and fifth-grade English teacher.

Because other than Burton’s unlikely advancement, it was mostly chalk elsewhere. Sure, 30-seeded Chase Elliott^e due to missing six races with a broken leg earlier this season, eliminated third-seeded Kevin Harvick. But given Elliott’s background at Dover and his popularity, we have a feeling he would have been a trendier upset pick than any 5-for-12 in college basketball.

And yes, 10^eTop-seeded Joey Logano was knocked out by No. 23 Aric Almirola, but Dover is a track Logano never seemed to master. A bit of digging into past performances and, hey, maybe Almirola doesn’t look so long in this game after all.

Unfortunately for us, we didn’t see any of those three coming and missed a few more. Upset predictions for Ryan Preece and Justin Haley, well, as usual when it comes to our predictions, they didn’t work out.

Maybe we should have given in to the 11-year-old expert on this one.

But this isn’t the first time we’ve submitted a bunch of support around these parts and we’ll keep fighting. This week we go to Kansas, which was Toyota’s playground in 2022, with the manufacturer taking both wins (Kurt Busch and Bubba Wallace) and four of the top five finishes in both events.

That will likely be reflected in this week’s picks, which could be the best news of all for Chevy and Ford.

And with these last words of sadness and woe, we leave.

(1) Christopher Bell vs. (17) Austin Cindric

Bell finished fifth and third at the Kansas races last year and…check the notes…yes, actually drives a Toyota. Cindric, who overtook 16-seeded Daniel Suarez at Dover, was also respectable, heading home 12^e and 11^e.

It won’t be as easy for Bell, who edged 32nd Ty Dillon 30 positions to advance to the second round and, as we’ve seen, surprise is a bit further than misfortune. We just can’t bring ourselves to bet on what happens here.

The choice : Bell.

(8) Ryan Blaney vs. (9) Denny Hamlin

For our money, this is the best second-round game in the group. But again, everything we know about the Next Gen car points to Toyota’s mastery in Kansas. Hamlin, for his part, finished fourth and second there last season. He is also a three-time winner of the 1.5 mile.

We like the new momentum from Blaney, who was rock solid coming in third at Dover, but it’s not enough this week.

The choice : Hamlin.

(5) Kyle Busch vs. (12) Ricky Stenhouse

The only reason Kyle Busch is here is because his bad day was somehow better than teammate Austin Dillon’s, with both Richard Childress Racing starters heading home 21^st and 29^e in Dover. But, as they say, survive and move on.

Stenhouse was decent at Kansas last year, finishing eighth in the spring race, but that marked his only top 10 at the track in 20 starts. Busch finished third in the fall race and had two wins and 14 top 10 finishes in 30 starts, but the main thing was in a Joe Gibbs Toyota.

We want to be frisky with this one, but Busch has beaten Stenhouse at both 1.5 mile tracks this season (Las Vegas and Atlanta) and we just can’t find any evidence that barring an accident, Stenhouse can beat Busch in speed.

The choice : Busch.

(13) William Byron vs. (29) Harrison Burton

What a break! Byron was lined up to face Larson in a battle of the powers of Hendrick, but instead gets Burton, whose Kansas best is 21^st. Byron meanwhile has a 60% top-10 rating, or 6 to 10.

Come on.

The choice : Byron.

(2) Ross Chastain vs. (15) Chris Buescher

It was a lucky No. 7 for Chastain since he finished there in both Kansas races last year. Buescher was 15 years old.^e and 27^e.

And at this point, we know that if that doesn’t happen, Chastain will make it happen. The winner of this wins the winner of our next game between Almirola and Martin Truex. Put those two on high alert when the 1 car is here this week.

The choice : Dark blond

(7) Martin Truex vs (23) Aric Almirola

It’s one of Truex’s best leads and with a win at Dover, the near future looks good for the No.19 team. He has two wins here and has combined to win 10 times at four of the next five stops (Kansas, Sonoma, Darlington and Charlotte). He also has 16 top 10 finishes in 29 starts at Kansas, including fifth and sixth last year.

Almirola, meanwhile, was outside the top 20 in both events in 2022. If Truex can stay out of trouble, and Chastain, he should navigate this one.

The choice : Truex.

(6) Tyler Reddick vs. (11) Brad Keselowski

Arguably the toughest second-round game to handicap. Reddick’s record at Kansas is downright bad, averaging 20.1 finishing and just two top 10 finishes in seven starts. But his new car, the No. 45, won both Kansas races last year and with a premium placed on driving the high line, you’d think it was only a matter of time before it does not engage.

Keselowski has historically been much better and his 12.1 career average is third among active drivers behind only Harvick (9.9) and Elliott (11.2). This includes a pair of wins.

So what to do? We think this one is 50-50 and to say the least, we don’t like our track record at these places.

The choice (provisionally): Redick.

(19) Ty Gibbs vs. (30) Chase Elliott

Gibbs finished 13^e at Dover but ran much better than that. As mentioned, Elliott’s career record at Kansas is excellent, but he finished outside the top 10 in both events last year.

Do not even think about it.

Gibbs finished first and third in two Xfinity races at Kansas.

Is Chase Elliott on high alert in Denny Hamlin’s tournament?

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