By Jared Turner Before the first lap was ever logged in the 2017 Monster Energy Series playoffs, the familiar late-season smack talk had already commenced. And, you can thank Brad Keselowski. Clearly peeved by Toyota’s dominance in recent weeks, the Team Penske/Ford driver used Twitter as his medium to suggest that Toyota currently has a major aerodynamic advantage over the other two manufacturers in NASCAR’s top series. “We are all in for a rude awakening,” Keselowski tweeted on Friday. “Haven't seen NASCAR let a manufacturer get this far ahead since the 70s.” Quick to challenge Keselowski’s bold statement was, not surprisingly, one…

By Jared Turner Kyle Busch began the playoffs on a sour note by finishing 15th in a race in which he started from the pole and led a race-high 85 laps. Busch’s day at Chicagoland took a turn for the worse when, after winning the first stage, he was forced to make an unscheduled green-flag pit stop to tighten some loose lug nuts. Matters took an even direr turn for the 2015 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series champ when he was issued a pass-through penalty for his pit crew coming over the pit wall too soon. Between the lug nut issue and…

By Jared Turner The Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series playoffs are historically a time when some drivers and teams who’ve enjoyed minimal success in the regular season come to life and turn up the proverbial heat, so to speak. Will it happen again this year? The results from the playoff opener at Chicagoland suggest it just might. While Chicagoland winner Martin Truex Jr.’s race victory came as no surprise, the drivers who finished second and third, respectively — Chase Elliott and Kevin Harvick — had one of their better performances in recent memory. In fact, Chicagoland matched Elliott’s best finish of the…

Martin Truex Jr. is the defending race winner at Chicagoland and will no doubt be highly motivated after having victory ripped from his grasp at Richmond as a result of a questionable late-race caution. Joey Logano missed the playoffs but all but guaranteed after Richmond that he’ll be a factor in the remaining 10 races. With no points considerations to impact his strategy, Logano is free to go for broke. Brad Keselowski won at Chicagoland in 2012 and 2014 and was fifth a season ago. Despite being relatively quiet in recent weeks, Keselowski might be the favorite this weekend if recent history…

By Jared Turner The regular season is over. It’s playoff time. The playoffs begin Sunday afternoon with the Tales of the Turtles 400 at Chicagoland Speedway, a 1.5-mile track that will host the first of three races in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series’ Round of 16. By the time the Round of 16 concludes at Dover on October 1, four drivers will have been eliminated from championship contention. While it’s not too hard to predict who among the 16 playoff drivers will advance to the next round, there are no guarantees. A bad race in the playoff opener could change everything…