Dr. Diandra: Easier to get stage points in 2022, but harder to get a lot of them

Christopher Bell had just won on the Roval. Confetti still littered Victory Lane. And winning crew chief Adam Stevens was already thinking about stage points and the Round of 8.

“Martinsville, that will be the struggle point, for sure,” Stevens said. “If we can go run solid top five and get stage points, threaten for a win in the first two, I think we can be enough of a factor to squeak through this round.”

“Squeaking” is an especially apt descriptor given that only 12 points separate the third-seed through eighth-seed drivers.

The Next Gen car has produced a season with 19 different race winners. But the Next Gen’s impact goes beyond race-win numbers.

In the first 32 points races of the season, 18 different drivers have won at least one stage. That ties the largest number of distinct stage winners in the history of stage racing.

And 2022 has four races left, including today’s race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Kevin Harvick, Erik Jones, Chris Buescher and Austin Dillon have each won races this season. None has a stage win. A new driver winning at Las Vegas will set a record.

The graph below shows which drivers won stages in 2022 and which stages they won. The names of the drivers still in contention for the championship are shown in red.

The two top drivers on this graph — Ryan Blaney and Martin Truex Jr. — have yet to win races. Each has, however, won seven stages out of the 65 possible so far this year.

Truex leads the all-time stage-win list with a total of 56. That includes a 2017 season in which he won 19 stages. His seven stage wins this year are the most he’s had since 2019.

Strong qualifying normally means better chances for Stage 1 points. Blaney seems to be an exception. Despite having the fifth-best average