We have officially stepped into the penultimate week of the 2023 NASCAR season. After 34 intense racing sessions involving the best drivers in the country, we are now left with eight of them. Come Sunday, there will only be four. As we look forward to the race in Martinsville, two drivers have already booked their seats in the Championship 4. Two more spots are left and six of the remaining drivers will be contending for those spots over the coming 500 laps.

Regardless of which of them secures those tickets to Phoenix, one cannot help but be in awe of how the 2023 season shaped up beautifully to give us this perfect mix of Round of 8 drivers. And someone equally mesmerized with these eight drivers is Hendrick Motorsports legend, Steve Letarte.

The legendary crew chief expresses his thrill at the extraordinary season of the Round of 8 drivers

Last Sunday’s race at Homestead-Miami shook the entire Round of 8 line-up. With Joe Gibbs Racing’s Christopher Bell taking the win, his teammates and championship favorites Denny Hamlin and Martin Truex Jr were pushed below the cutoff line. Joining them at the lower ranks are 23XI Racing’s Tyler Reddick and RFK Racing’s Chris Buescher. While it is not a must-win situation for all four, only a victory lane visit at Martinsville will guarantee that coveted contention spot in Phoenix.

As Letarte sat down with NBC Sports’ Nate Ryan to discuss the playoff picture, the latter talked to him about which of the bottom four drivers could make it past the coming Sunday. Avoiding picking a clear favorite, Letarte said, “Only thing I will say is they’re the right eight. Because stats agree. Like, past history agrees with everything you just said. I didn’t have Ryan Blaney win the 600. I didn’t have him running the top five and he showed up boom on the scene!

“[…] Did you have Chris Buescher in the playoffs? Here he is in the round of eight. Did you have William Byron winning six races?”

Taking the examples of the extraordinary season that Blaney, Buescher, and Byron have had, Letarte explained why he thought anybody could rewrite the rules at Martinsville. Going a step forward, the ex-crew chief also gave a reason for the dominance of sports on television.

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Who can grab the remaining tickets that will be up in the air at Martinsville?

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Continuing to talk about how sports athletes always manage to traverse expectations, Letarte said, “Why do Sports dominate television? Because athletes and teams continue to rewrite the rules and the record books. It wouldn’t shock me if Denny Hamlin has a walk-off win. It wouldn’t shock me if Tyler Reddick would… What makes sports great is, it’s not, you know, made for reality TV. It’s real life that we get to cover from the broadcast booth.”

As Letarte said, we did get to see some shocking ups and down the ladder all season. Beginning from Chase Elliott’s tragedy to Bubba Wallace’s best season, the year has sprung one too many surprises. There is no reason to doubt there will be one more in store on Sunday. Will it be a Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota? Or the Ford of Team Penske? Maybe Michael Jordan’s driver Reddick will pull a quick on the others. We won’t have to wait long to find out.

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