Chicagoland Betting Preview: 2017 Tales of the Turtles 400

It's go time. Stuff counts big time now.

Yes, let's drop the green flag already and get this playoff party started!

The Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs kicks off this weekend at Chicagoland Speedway with 16 eligible drivers vying to become the season champion. Martin Truex Jr.comes in with a 20-point lead over Kyle Larson based on incentive points earned during the regular season, but he's only 50 points ahead of 16th-place Jamie McMurray. For the next 10 races, it doesn't matter what drivers did in the first 26 races.

Right now, it's put up or shut up.

For a quick overview of how this playoff system works, think of a bracket with four stages of advancement. Sunday's Chicagoland race starts the Round of 16 which also consists of next week's race at New Hampshire and the following week at Dover. Any driver winning any one of those races automatically advances and the top-12 points earners advance. The bottom four drivers in points will be eliminated.

The same process occurs in the Round of 12 with races at Charlotte, Talladega and Kansas. Then it's the Round of 8 with races at Martinsville, Texas and Phoenix where the Final Four drivers will be determined to race in the Championship Round at Homestead on November 19. Whoever has the best finish among those final four drivers will be the 2017 Champion.

Picking the favorites to win it all isn't a hard process because we've been seeing the likes of Truex and Larson dominate for most of the season, especially on 1.5-mile tracks and it's important to note that five of the 10 playoff races are on 1.5-mile tracks starting with Chicagoland. We've seen six races on 1.5s this season so far and Truex won on three of them. He has four wins this season, which is tied for the series lead with Larson.

The last time we saw a race on a 1.5-mile track was at Kentucky way back on July 8 and a lot has changed in the series since then. The biggest change has been the resurgence of Joe Gibbs Racing which has won four of the past eight races. They started to regain some speed by the time Kentucky came around with Denny Hamlin finishing fourth and Kyle Busch finishing fifth, but they were still behind the likes of Truex, who won, and Larson, who finished second.

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