BRISTOL, Tenn. — One of the expected effects of NASCAR's introduction of the Next Gen car this year was a more level playing field for all teams in the Cup Series.
That proved true during the regular season, and parity apparently has no intentions of putting on the brakes in the playoffs.
Chris Buescher won Saturday night at Bristol Motor Speedway to become the 19th driver with at least one victory this year, tying NASCAR's single-season record, and in the process he closed out a bizarre first round of the postseason. The second victory of Buescher's career marked the first time in this format of NASCAR's postseason that a playoff driver failed to win during a round.
Petty GMS Motorsports driver Erik Jones won the opener at Darlington Raceway, and 23XI Racing's Bubba Wallace won last Sunday at Kansas Speedway.
Buescher won for RFK Racing, the longtime Jack Roush-owned team that took on veteran driver Brad Keselowski in the ownership group this season, to give the organization its first win in a Cup Series points race in more than five years. Buescher and Keselowski both won during a pair of exhibition races for RFK at Daytona International Speedway in February.
"This is so special, this team does such a good job," said Buescher, who won with a late call for two tires on the final pit stop. "It's special to get RFK into victory lane for the first time."
Keselowski, the 2012 Cup Series champion who ended a long, successful run at Team Penske to join the organization formerly known as Roush Fenway Racing, earned his first stage victory of the season Saturday. He congratulated Buescher both on the track and in victory lane.
The showdown on the Tennessee short track was the first elimination race of the playoffs, and it was a nail-biter to the very end as at least a dozen of the 16 title contenders had some sort of problem. There was a rash of flat tires for Ford drivers, mechanical problems for Toyota — including an engine failure for Joe Gibbs Racing's Kyle Busch — and Richard Childress Racing's two drivers were both involved in a crash.
The playoff field is now down to a dozen drivers, and eliminated from the playoffs were 2014 Cup Series champ Kevin Harvick of Stewart-Haas Racing, two-time Cup Series champ Busch and RCR teammates Austin Dillon and Tyler Reddick.
"This place is tough on the drivers. It's tough on the cars," Reddick said. "You never know how it's going to go."
Busch, Dillon and Harvick were all below the cutline headed into the race, but Harvick had a shot at the win until a wheel fell off his Ford during the final pit stop. He'd inherited a near-clear path to the victory — and an automatic berth into the next round — when Keselowski got a flat tire and hit the wall while leading.
"Just went from having a chance to lead the parade to being a part of the parade," said Harvick, who noted he was ahead of Buescher at the final pit stop.
Penske's Austin Cindric barely advanced because he was one of the early Ford drivers to run into trouble with a flat tire. There was a rash of tire problems for Ford drivers, and it would have eliminated many of them if so many playoff drivers didn't have problems.
Among those who had no problems were Hendrick Motorsports teammates Chase Elliott and William Byron, who finished second and third in Chevrolets.
Christopher Bell finished fourth in a JGR Toyota and was followed by reigning Cup Series champ Kyle Larson of Hendrick and Ross Chastain of Trackhouse Racing. AJ Allmendinger and Cole Custer, neither in the playoff field, finished seventh and eighth, respectively.
NASCAR also had 19 unique winners in 1956, 1958, 1961 and 2001. Elliott, the regular-season champion who cycled back to the points lead for the start of the second round of the playoffs, noted the first three races showed what a crapshoot the process is this year.
"I don't think anybody is safe," said Elliott, who won his first Cup Series title two years ago. "Nobody is safe in these rounds. And we want to do better, too."
Busch's bid for a third championship in his final season with JGR is over. He closed a wild week in which he announced he was leaving his longtime team to drive for RCR, then went to Bristol desperately trying to stay in title contention.
But his engine seemed to fail just past the halfway mark, and after his Toyota bounced off the wall, he drove to the garage and walked back to his truck. He never removed his helmet.
"I don't even know what to say. I'm flabbergasted," Busch said. "I just feel so bad for my guys. They don't deserve to be in this spot -- we're too good of a group to be this low down on the bottom and fighting for our lives just to make it through. But two engine failures in three weeks, that will do it to you.
"This is not our normal."
It seemed certain Busch had been eliminated from the playoffs until the next restart, when Daniel Suarez triggered a crash that also caused damage to Dillon and Reddick. Like Busch, Dillon went to Bristol below the cutline and in danger of elimination.
The crash gave new hope to Busch, but he said he wasn't sticking around to find out if he advanced: Once released of his NASCAR obligations, he was headed back to North Carolina.
"I've got kids at home," said Busch, who wound up 34th in the race.
The second round starts next weekend at Texas Motor Speedway and will be followed by races at Talladega Superspeedway and Charlotte Motor Speedway's Roval course before four more drivers are eliminated.
The 12 remaining contenders are Elliott, Joey Logano, Chastain, Larson, Byron, Denny Hamlin, Bell, Ryan Blaney, Chase Briscoe, Alex Bowman, Suarez and Cindric.