NASCAR playoffs

■ The top 16 drivers compete in the fourround, 10-race, elimination-style Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series playoffs, which begin Sunday at Chicagoland Speedway.

■ Playoff-eligible drivers who win a race in a round automatically advance to the next round of the postseason.

■ The four drivers lowest in points who haven’t won in the round are eliminated after every third race, leaving four drivers advancing to the Championship 4 on Nov. 19 at Homestead-miami Speedway.

■ The highest finisher of the remaining four drivers at Homestead wins the championship.

Ron Kantowski history (third in 2009); she is the only woman to lead laps in the Indy 500 and Daytona 500; she is the only woman to win a Cup Series pole.

(She also made racy ads for sponsor Godaddy that ran during the Super Bowl.)

Exhibit B: It has been said the only guy a driver truly has to beat is his (or her) teammates, something Patrick rarely did in NASCAR. She’s 28th in points, whereas teammates Kevin Harvick, Kurt Busch and Clint Bowyer — running the same equipment — are sixth, 12th and 17th.

New driver for Schmidt

Schmidt Peterson Motorsports, the Indycar team headed by Henderson’s Sam Schmidt, will partner former Formula One team owner Didier Calmels in fielding a car for French driver Tristan Gommendy in the 2018 Indianapolis 500.

Calmels in 1990 was sentenced to six years in prison for fatally shooting his first wife. The French courts ruled it a “crime of passion” — more severe than running over an air hose in the pits, one supposes, but a sentence from which Calmels was absolved after serving two years.

“The matter is of public record, and we have been aware of it throughout our discussion,” Schmidt said in a statement to Indystar.com. “Didier has fulfilled his obligations and gone on to become a successful businessman and team owner in European motor sport.”

Ron Kantowski’s motor sports notebook appears Friday. Contact him at rkantowski@reviewjournal. com or 702-383-0352. Follow @ ronkantowski on Twitter.