The first elimination race of NASCAR’s playoffs has a three-time Daytona 500 winner and a pair of former Cup Series champions in danger of being bumped from title contention Saturday night at Bristol Motor Speedway.

The trio also happen to be among NASCAR’s biggest stars in a 16-driver playoff field in which popular drivers Kyle Busch, Ross Chastain and Bubba Wallace were among those who failed to qualify.

So this year’s field is fairly watered down, and yet Denny Hamlin, Brad Keselowski, Martin Truex Jr. and Harrison Burton are all below the cutline headed into the first elimination race of the playoffs. The bottom four drivers at the end of Saturday night’s race will be eliminated.

So what’s the plan?

For Hamlin, a four-time winner at Bristol, the goal is very simple.

“I’m coming here to win,” Hamlin said Friday. “That strategy won’t change unless the situation changes in the race. I’m going on the offense starting right away, and I’m going to be fine with the result, either way.

“I just know, that over 500 laps here, things will work themselves out.”

Joey Logano is the only driver locked into the second round based on his victory in the playoff opener at Atlanta. That leaves the other 11 spots open, with the bottom four in most trouble.

The Atlanta race and the road course at Watkins Glen last week are new venues to the 10-race playoff schedule and that’s how Hamlin, a three-time Daytona 500 winner, and 2012 champion Keselowski and 2017 champion Truex landed in this spot.

Both tracks are unpredictable and Keselowski’s 19th-place finish at Atlanta is the highest among the three drivers in both races. Truex, who was 20th at Watkins Glen, was seething after that race over the lack of respect among drivers throughout the field.

He’s retiring from full-time competition at the end of the season, and figured it’s probably too late to turn into a dirty driver now. He said he didn’t know if he’d be willing to step outside his ethical beliefs to advance into the next playoff round.

“I really don’t know. I think it will just kind of depend on the situation — what we find ourselves in and what is going on,” Truex said. “But most likely not. I will most likely race the same way I always do and hopefully we are good enough to get the job done in that way.”

Wallace extension vs. 23XI charter

Hamlin said the contract extension given to Wallace earlier this week should not be interpreted as 23XI Racing being close to signing NASCAR’s charter agreement.

23XI was one of only two holdouts when given a deadline two weeks ago to take NASCAR’s final offer. The team announced Wallace signed a multi-year extension.

“Nothing has changed on our side on (charters),” said Hamlin, who co-owns the team with Michael Jordan and Curtis Polk. “We’ve said for awhile that we plan on racing next year and we’re sticking to that.”

Hamlin said that was the message delivered this week during a sponsor summit 23XI Racing hosted for its partners.

“We were really strong in our messaging that nothing is changing. What battles we have off the race track is on ownership,” Hamlin said.

Driver swap

In what accumulates to a rare in-season team trade, Spire Motorsports and Rick Ware Racing said Friday they will swap drivers starting with next week’s race at Kansas Speedway.

Corey LaJoie, who had already been told he would not be returning to Spire next season, will begin driving for Rick Ware Racing next weekend. Justin Haley, who has previous experience driving for Spire, will move back to his old team to replace LaJoie.

Haley’s seat is secured through 2025, while LaJoie has essentially a tryout with Rick Ware Racing for the final two months of the season.

LaJoie is considered the leading contender to be named the full-time driver at RWR but must prove himself over the final seven races of the year.

Haley has driven partial schedules for Spire across multiple seasons and gave the team its lone Cup Series win with a victory at Daytona in July 2019.

NASCAR trades are surprisingly rare because of the sponsorship contracts that are typically tied to a car or a specific driver.

“It’s unique, it’s unconventional,” RWR president Robby Benton said. “Driver swaps, player trades — they’re very different for what we do (in NASCAR). But it’s important to tell you it’s all amicable.”

Kurt Busch went to Furniture Row Racing for the final six races of 2012 and Jeff Burton moved to Richard Childress Racing with 14 races remaining in 2004. The closest driver trade was in 2003 when Jeff Green and Steve Park switched rides.

The last of Dale Jr.?

Dale Earnhardt Jr. anticipates Friday night’s Xfinity Series race at Bristol Motor Speedway will be his last one at least until 2026.

The deal JR Motorsports has with sponsor Hellmann’s Mayonnaise required the Hall of Fame driver to pilot the car at Bristol. That clause does not exist for 2025.

“I’m not planning on racing next year,” Earnhardt said of the Xfinity Series. “I’ll be foolish to say I’m never going to run again because I don’t know well enough to stay away from it, and I’ll probably miss it next year and be absolutely willing to sign up for anything that might be beneficial to JR Motorsports.”

Earnhardt, who turns 50 later this year, anticipates missing racing in the series next year and “terribly regret that I didn’t race and probably in 2026 find me somewhere that I can go compete in the Xfinity Series again.”

“If a partner comes together with a package that helps one of the other cars fill out multiple races that we have some inventory, I’m absolutely on board to do a race for that reason alone,” he said.

Earnhardt will be in the No. 88 Chevrolet at Bristol that Connor Zilisch drove to victory last weekend at Watkins Glen in his Xfinity Series debut.

Earnhardt said JR Motorsports has not closed talks on eventually fielding a Cup team.

“You just never know that when the phone rings what’s going to be on the other end of that call these days especially,” he said. “There’s a ton of new interest that’s coming into the sport and with the new (charter) agreement, that’ll churn a bunch of potential partners that have been kind of looking at the sport and waiting on that agreement to happen to see really where the dollars net out.

“We may be able to latch on to some of that momentum and some of those happenings. We may not. If it doesn’t happen, I don’t know if it will be a massive regret of mine.”