So it happens that Christopher Bell’s exciting late-race pass for the win last week in the NASCAR Cup Series’ first Playoff elimination race at Bristol, Tenn. sets up this week’s opening race in the Round of 12 quite perfectly.

Bell has taught a master class at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, winning two of the last three NASCAR Cup Series races at the historic one-mile oval and technically entering the weekend as the defending race winner in all three of NASCAR’s national series with a victory in last Fall’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race and hoisting the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race trophy in its last visit to the track in 2017.

No doubt he comes into Sunday’s Mobil 1 301 (2 p.m. ET on USA Network, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) feeling confident in himself and his Joe Gibbs Racing team that swept all three of the first round Playoff races with Toyota teammates Chase Briscoe (Darlington, S.C.) and Denny Hamlin (Gateway, Ill.) winning at the previous two races in that opening series – marking the first time one team has ever swept a round.

Last year it was also Briscoe – then in a Stewart-Haas Racing Ford – that Bell had to beat for the famous New Hampshire winning lobster. In the three-race Next Gen car era, Toyota has swept all the races at the track, won all six stages and led 83% of the laps.

In the three Playoff races this year, Toyota has led 78 percent of all laps.

“I’m obviously excited about Loudon,” Bell said following his Bristol win – his fourth victory of the season. “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.”

This weekend marks the first time since 2017 that New Hampshire has hosted a Playoff race and there’s certainly a cast of motivated teams ready to start this Round of 12 off positively.

With the points re-set for this three-race round, Hamlin sits atop the standings by two points over Hendrick Motorsports teammates William Byon (the Regular Season Champion) and Kyle Larson. Bell is fourth, only six points off his teammate Hamlin. Team Penske’s Ryan Blaney is fifth, six points back, followed by JGR’s Briscoe, Hendrick’s Chase Elliott and 23XI Racing’s Bubba Wallace, who goes into the Round of 12 with a single-point edge in the cutoff position over Penske’s Austin Cindric.

Reigning series champion, Team Penske’s Joey Logano and Trackhouse Racing’s Ross Chastain are two points off Wallace and 23XI Racing’s Tyler Reddick is three points back from the cutline.

Among those 12, only Hamlin (three wins), Logano (two wins) and Bell (two wins) have hoisted trophies at the track. Only two other active drivers, Richard Childress Racing’s Kyle Busch (three wins) and Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing owner-driver Brad Keselowski (two wins) have won previously at New Hampshire.

“I feel like New Hampshire has been one of those tracks to where we have run well and just not really finished where we deserved,” said Team Penske’s Blaney, the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series champion. “I felt really good there last year. We were running up front before the rain. We were running second during the rain and got turned around there on one of the last restarts, but I think just trying to stay in the mix. The first part of it is trying to have a car that runs up towards the front. I am happy that New Hampshire has gotten a Playoff race.”

The key for now seems to be stopping the Toyotas. The driver who has led the most laps has won five of the last seven races this season. Surprisingly, Chevrolet only has a pair of top-five runs in the Playoff races.

“It’s just all the Toyotas are super-fast right now,” Bell said. “I think I said it last week in my post-race interview that this is the best race car I’ve had to drive in the Cup Series compared to the competition in my career.

“I think it goes from Joe Gibbs Racing to 23XI (Racing); they’ve been really good; even the Legacy {Motor Club] cars have had an amazing performance the last couple weeks. That’s the good news.

“The bad news is we’re not running [the championship finale] Phoenix next week and there’s still a long way to go to get there. … We are in a really good spot right now, we as in the Toyota group, and specifically Joe Gibbs Racing.

“But we’ve got a long way to go to get to Phoenix and it’s going to be a hard road, and everybody knows that.”

Practice followed by Busch Light Pole Qualifying is Saturday at 3 p.m. ET (truTV, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Elliott is the defending pole-winner.

TIL NEXT TIME, I AM STILL WORKING ON MY REDNECK!