USA TODAY International Edition
Predictions for the 2021 NASCAR Cup season
Separating championship contenders from rest of pack
The NFL’s Super Bowl is in the rearview mirror, but NASCAR’s is right up the road. Here’s what to expect, with a few spoiler alerts, too.
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – The NFL’s Super Bowl is in the rear- view, but NASCAR’s season has just begun.
The shortest offseason in American sports came to an end Tuesday with the 43rd Busch Clash at Daytona exhibition race, which kicked off two weeks of racing at Daytona International Speedway.
On Sunday, Cup Series drivers hit the 2.5- mile superspeedway for the “Great American Race,” the Daytona 500, NASCAR’s most famous event.
Then one week later on Feb. 21 those same drivers will take on the Daytona road course for the season’s second race.
So let’s offer up some spoiler alerts for the season.
It’s prediction time!
Regular- season Cup champion
Let’s start off with the regular season.
Last year Kevin Harvick rolled to a regular- season championship, winning seven races and clinching the 15 extra playoff points a week before the regular season ended.
This year don’t be surprised if Chase Elliott has that breakthrough regular season.
Thanks to NASCAR’s revamped schedule, six of the races during the regular season will be on a road course. Elliott has already established himself as the best road racer in the series right now, so don’t be surprised if he wins at least three of those.
Add in a few other wins – Martinsville, Bristol and Talladega come to mind – and your 2020 defending champ could be your 2021 regular- season champ.
Setting the playoff field
Now, to the playoffs.
Of the 16 drivers who qualify, let’s get the easy ones out of the way: Elliott, Harvick, Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin, Martin Truex Jr., Joey Logano, Brad Keselowski and Ryan Blaney will all make the playoffs. There, I said it!
Now, for the other eight. Let’s go with Alex Bowman, Kyle Larson and William Byron from Hendrick Motorsports. Kurt Busch from Chip Ganassi Racing and Aric Almirola from Stewart- Haas Racing. Matt DiBenedetto in that pretty No. 21 Wood Brothers Ford. Austin Dillon represents Richard Childress Racing. For the one newcomer to the 2021 playoff field, let’s go with Bubba Wallace and the 23XI team – his new team’s co- owner knows a thing or two about playoffs.
The playoff surprises
The playoffs begin in Darlington and end in Phoenix, just like last year.
Up until now, we’ve been pretty boring with these picks. So let’s go nuts ( kinda).
The drivers who advance to the third round include: Elliott, Larson, Harvick, Kyle Busch, Truex, Blaney, DiBenedetto and Wallace.
That’s right. No Logano or Keselowski, and no Hamlin. Something tells me Blaney is in for a big year, and don’t sleep on DiBenedetto. This is his final year in the No. 21 car, so he’ll be racing for his future.
The Cup champion will be ...
Time to bring this season home! The Championship Four will include Elliott, Harvick, Blaney and Kyle Busch. So you get the defending champion, two previous champions and a championship rookie in Blaney.
I’ll take those storylines for a final race.
In the end, though, it’s the old guy who prevails. Much like Tom Brady did in the Super Bowl, Kevin Harvick proves he’s not done yet and wins his second Cup Series championship.