The battle for one of the few remaining points positions in the Playoffs was incredibly close entering Michigan, with zero points in it. Leaving Michigan, the battle has remained tight. With several bubble drivers becoming involved in crashes, the points picture proves that the key to securing a Playoff berth is recovering for every possible point.
While the drivers with the largest points buffers – Truex and Chastain – just maintained their leads in the bubble standings, no driver maximized their recovery so better than Chris Buescher at Michigan. He’d entered Michigan above the cutline by zero points, holding the tiebreaker over Ross Chastain by virtue of a best finish of second to Chastain’s fourth, and now leaves with a 16-point cushion.
Playoff bubble leaving Michigan
13. (+77) Martin Truex
14. (+39) Ty Gibbs
15. (+16) Chris Buescher
16. (+1) Ross Chastain
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17. (-1) Bubba Wallace
18. (-93) Kyle Busch
19. (-115) Chase Briscoe
20. (-151) Todd Gilliland
On lap 117 of 200, Kyle Larson got loose in restart traffic and spun by himself in front of the middle of the pack, collecting multiple cars – including Buescher, pushed into the carnage by Todd Gilliland. While Larson, Gilliland, and Christopher Bell suffered damage severe enough to take them out of the race, Buescher was able to make repairs and continue on. The damage certainly impacted his performance, though, and he was unhappy with Gilliland for involving him in the wreck.
“Things happen in front but to me I just feel like if you see an accident, start checking up. It seems like not a lot of people do that right now. It is just chaos when these yellows come out,” he complained. “We have damage on all four corners of this Fifth Third Bank Ford Mustang. We were still fast, but the balance was not near as good.”
From there, Buescher managed to climb through the field to contend for a top-ten finish as the laps wound down. And, when a late caution led to two Overtime attempts, his No. 17 team chose to pit for new tires that allowed him to make big moves on the restarts and ultimately finish sixth.
“It was a good strategy call and a good move to pit there and do something different for us,” he explained. “We had a chance to win this race. So it was a good call to do something different and take the right-side tires and we were able to pass a ton of cars. It was wild but a heck of a way to salvage a day that should have been better.
While he rued the loss of a chance at a win, Buescher admitted that points became the focus, and his recovery amounted to a good day.
“I am adamant that we are not points racers but when our chance to win this thing was gone, ultimately that was some of the mentality, to figure out how to make the best of our day,” Buescher said.
“We had seen troubles from some of the other cars that were on the bubble. I wouldn’t say we weren’t aggressive on restarts, though. We were moving, but we were also trying to be smart and methodical about it and not put ourselves in a really bad spot. It was on our mind there at the end. It is what you have to do once you aren’t in contention to win the race.”
For the extent of Buescher’s gain, however, another driver in the bubble battle had to struggle. At Michigan, that was Bubba Wallace. He was also involved in the lap 117 crash, hitting Larson as he spun. Wallace had a very fast Toyota Camry, battling for the lead early, but suffered more serious damage and was unable to get back into contention.
Ultimately, Wallace finished 26th, though points for a fourth-place run in Stage 1 limit the damage somewhat, and Wallace ultimately slipped from three points above the cutline entering Michigan to one below leaving.
As a result of Wallace’s misfortune, the other driver in the points battle got a lucky break on a bad day. Despite his 25th-place finish, Ross Chastain held serve in the standings. Entering zero points out, losing out on the tiebreaker to Chris Buescher, he leaves one point to the good. Chastain’s performance was buoyed by a tenth-place finish in Stage 1 and a runner-up in the second stage, for a total of ten extra -critical – points.
Behind Chastain and Wallace, Kyle Busch and others are too far out of range to get into the Playoffs on points.
After Michigan, there are just two more regular-season races before the final Playoff field is set. Notably, while the race is currently for four points positions, two new winners this season would automatically earn a postseason berth and could limit the points positions to just two (and one new winner in those two races would limit it to just one).
That means each driver on the bubble needs to maximize every point possible in the next two races. And, with those being at Daytona and Darlington, some misfortune for some of the drivers is almost inevitable – overcoming it could be the ticket in. Of course, each of the bubble drivers could also score a win which will take all of their problems away.
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