The first round of the Cup Series playoffs featured a clean sweep by Joe Gibbs Racing and Toyota. This could possibly continue based on Toyota's immense success at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in the Gen 7 era.
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The Cup Series teams have taken on the 1.058-mile oval three times since NASCAR introduced the current car. Christopher Bell has won two of these races (2022, 2024) while Martin Truex Jr. won once (2023), but this is only one telling statistic.
Toyota drivers have accounted for all six stage wins at New Hampshire since the 2022 season. Toyota drivers have led 83% of the laps at the New England track in this same stretch of time.
Bell led 192 laps, Truex Jr. led 423 laps, Denny Hamlin led 43 laps, Tyler Reddick led 53 laps, and Kurt Busch led 40 laps. John Hunter Nemechek, Erik Jones, Bubba Wallace, and Ty Gibbs have yet to lead a lap at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in the Gen 7 era.
This Toyota dominance at New Hampshire could become critical this weekend considering the number of playoff drivers driving Camry XSE race cars.
Wallace, Reddick, Hamlin, Bell, and Chase Briscoe are all part of the Round of 12 of the playoffs. They join three drivers from Ford and four from Chevrolet. The driver from this group who performs the best could put himself into the Round of 8, one step closer to the all-important Championship 4.
"Yeah, I'm obviously excited about Loudon," Bell said after winning last weekend at Bristol Motor Speedway. "It's a great track for us. Super important race kicking off the Round of 12. So we need to go there and most importantly get a lot of points, score a lot of points, got to qualify well, got to qualify better than we've been qualifying, and have a great race.
"I think we're every bit as capable as any of the other 12 out there. It's a good racetrack for us as a group and we know what it takes to be good there, and it seems like our cars are really good. I'm looking forward to the challenge ahead."
