Harvick and Hamlin favored to win at Kansas as Round of 8 begins

Six races have been completed in the 2020 NASCAR Playoffs with just eight drivers remaining eligible to win the Cup Championship after eight have been eliminated.

The Round of 8 begins Sunday at Kansas Speedway with the Hollywood Casino 400 and will continue at Texas the following week and conclude at Martinsville where four more drivers will bow out of contention giving us the Championship 4 to battle it out at Phoenix on Nov. 8.

Drivers will carry over their points from the season and what has been gained during the Playoffs. But when they get to Phoenix, all four drivers will come in with the same amount of points and whoever finishes the best among them will be our 2020 champion.

The key component in the Round of 8 is that there are two 1.5-mile tracks and the drivers will be using the race package with engines producing 550 horsepower that has been used 18 times this season on larger tracks and Sunday’s race will be the 10th time it has been used on a 1.5-mile track.

Kevin Harvick and Denny Hamlin have combined to win 11 of the 18 races using the 550 hp package and both are the drivers we need to start with here, although Harvick has only one win on a 1.5-mile track (at Atlanta, June 7).

The last two races on 1.5s have been dominated by Hamlin. He won July 23 at Kansas leading a race-high 57 laps, his second Kansas win in a row, and then he finished third at Las Vegas on Sept. 27 after leading a race-high 121 laps. He should have won in Vegas for the first time, but a late caution after he and the other leaders pitted put them at the tail end of the lead lap with 22 laps to go. It led to Kurt Busch earning his first career win in any series on his home track.

In three of the other races on 1.5s, there was a tire compound used that didn’t wear and allowed drivers to bypass tire changes and take fuel only on the final pit stop with the gamble paying off all three times. Joey Logano won at Las Vegas in February, Cole Custer won at Kentucky July 12 paying out 300-1 odds, and Austin Dillon paid out at 100-1 odds at Kentucky the following week.

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