Daytona is the perfect end to NASCAR’s regular season, particularly a regular season like the one in 2024.
It might not be the true finale – the modified schedule for the Olympics this year means the Playoffs will actually begin after Darlington next week – but for plenty of drivers, Saturday night’s Coke Zero Sugar 400, airing at 7:30 p.m. ET on NBC, MRN, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio will seem like a last chance to make the Playoffs.
That’s because the superspeedway-style of racing at tracks like Daytona is always unpredictable. With an unprecedented level of parity with the Next Gen car and a recent rule change that guarantees any winner automatic Playoff eligibility (unless that gets rets rescinded later), just about every driver comes in with some chance of winning.
Odds via BetMGM
+1200 – Denny Hamlin
+1200 – Joey Logano
+1200 – Ryan Blaney
+1300 – Brad Keselowski
+1600 – Kyle Busch
+1600 – Bubba Wallace
+1600 – Chris Buescher
+1600 – William Byron
+1600 – Chase Elliott
+1800 – Kyle Larson
All that makes it impossible to pick a runaway favorite, but the odds are on Denny Hamlin. That makes sense – Hamlin has won three times at the track. However, all of those three wins are in the crown jewel Daytona 500 in February, and Hamlin has yet to win the Daytona summer race.
Penske teammates Ryan Blaney and Joey Logano are favorited as well. Both have consistently run well at superspeedways throughout their career, though both are also aggressive – they crashed out of the Daytona 500 earlier this year late in the race after running up front and swapping the lead. The Penske teammates are two drivers who like to control the race from the front and have a lot of success from doing so. If they can stay out of trouble, expect them to be in the battle for the checkered flag.
While superspeedway racing at Daytona is all about the win, there’s still points battles at both ends of the Playoff table. At the top, there’s a new regular season championship leader after Michigan with Tyler Reddick holding the spot by ten points over Chase Elliott and 32 points over Kyle Larson.
Notably, Denny Hamlin had occupied that third-place position, but a penalty awarded to him by NASCAR took him down to sixth with the loss of 75 regular-season points. He also lost 10 Playoff points and incurred a $100,000 fine because the engine from his Bristol win wasn’t presented to NASCAR for inspection but was instead rebuilt by TRD, the engine builder for all the Toyota teams. TRD put out a statement admitting full responsibility, apologizing to Hamlin and his Joe Gibbs Racing team, and promising to revamp its procedures so such an oversight won’t happen again.
The regular season champion will get a nice trophy at Darlington and an especially nice bonus of 15 Playoff points. Martin Truex proved just how valuable those points can be last season when he made a deep run into the Playoffs despite a terrible stretch of many finishes outside the top twenty.
Speaking of Truex, the battle is even tighter on the opposite end of the Playoff standings. Entering Daytona, there are four spots available to make the Playoffs on points – 12 drivers have earned a berth on account of their race win (the thirteenth winner, Austin Dillon, got his automatic eligibility revoked by NASCAR).
However, any new winners in the next two races would (presumably) also get that automatic berth, so there could be as few as two spots on points when all is said and done.
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
Truex enters in the best points position, with a large cushion to the cutline. Ty Gibbs, who’s had a breakout sophomore season in the Cup Series, also has a fairly comfortable margin, but one which can certainly evaporate if an early crash takes him out of contention at Daytona.
Closer to the cutline, Chris Buescher, Ross Chastain, and Bubba Wallace are all locked in a tight battle for those final spots. Buescher had entered Michigan right on the cutline, zero points above with just a tiebreaker over Ross Chastain by virtue of two runner-up finishes being better than Chastain’s best finish of fourth, but leaves 16 to the good, proving that the key for drivers on the bubble is recovering from crashes and misfortune. There is plenty of potential for misfortune at Daytona.
No drivers below Wallace have a shot on points, and all need a win. With the rule change, they can even come from outside the top thirty, so any have a chance.
They do have to be full-time drivers, though, so Shane van Gisbergen, who will be driving the No. 16 this weekend for Kaulig Racing in his Daytona debut in the Cup Series, can’t automatically make the Playoffs – just like how he didn’t when he did in fact win last year.
Qualifying will take place on Friday at 5:05 p.m. ET and will air on USA Network, MRN, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
Last year’s pole winner Chase Briscoe didn’t ultimately get the win, and he spoke about the intensity of pack racing at Daytona that means pole position doesn’t mean that much.
“It’s chaos, full-blown chaos. Just any time we go to Daytona or Talladega, the intensity is always high, and guys know it’s a great opportunity for them to win, where at other tracks they just don’t have the opportunity,” he explained.
“Guys are more aggressive, and there are just more guys in the mix. Every time we have this second Daytona race, it’s just full-blown chaos because everybody knows that’s their final opportunity to make the playoffs. I feel like this race is always a wreck-fest, especially at the end, and not a lot of cars finish.”
The race for the Xfinity Series postseason heats up under the Daytona lights
There are five races to go before the Xfinity Series Playoffs kick off, and Daytona is the perfect opportunity for a driver to upset the Playoff picture. A new winner in Friday night’s Wawa 250 Powered by Coca-Cola at Daytona International Speedway, airing at 7:30 p.m. ET on USA Network, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio would get a Playoff berth and upset the drivers hoping for a spot in on points.
That includes AJ Allmendinger, a past championship contender in the series who’s used to winning. He enters Daytona with a large 102-point advantage over the cutline, but Allmendinger is looking for a win this season.
Having bounced between the Xfinity Series and the Cup Series to chase trophies, Allmendinger might be disappointed with his Kaulig Racing team’s overall performance this season, which hasn’t been enough to get him to victory lane. His teammate Shane van Gisbergen has won three times, all on the road courses – the most of any driver, but Trackhouse helps out with preparing the car. Allmendinger’s other teammate, Josh Williams, is also winless and sits well below the cutline on points.
That might explain why Allmendinger will be moving back up to the Cup Series for Kaulig next year, hoping to at least pick up some wins on the road courses.
Other drivers on the cutline have a smaller advantage. Sheldon Creed, who now has eleven career runner-up finishes in the series without a win, has a large 70-point buffer, but Parker Kligerman is just 16 points to the good and Sammy Smith enters with just a one-point buffer over Ryan Sieg, who’s having an especially good year with RSS Racing. Behind them, Brandon Jones and others have a much larger points deficit.
Creed might not be looking forward to Daytona, but he just needs to be consistent.
“I’ve just trying to be able to get through these speedway style tracks,” he said after winning the pole at Michigan. “I feel like our team has been consistent. I think we have nine top-fives, but we need to clean up our races a little bit to get better stage points. Just going to work on dialing that in, and then come Playoff time be right where we want to be.”
Qualifying will take place on Friday at 3:00 p.m. ET and will air on USA Network, MRN, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
during the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Clean Harbors 175 at The Milwaukee Mile on August 27, 2023 in West Allis, Wisconsin. (Photo by Jonathan Bachman/Getty Images)
Truck Series Playoffs kick off at the Milwaukee Mile
The Craftsman Truck Series has a Playoff grid all set and is ready to open the postseason with a short-track battle at the Milwaukee Mile in Sunday’s LiUNA! 175, airing at 4 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
Ty Majeski is the defending winner both at the track last season and in the series with his win at Richmond two weeks ago in the regular season finale.
It’s Corey Heim, with the most wins on the season, who has the biggest advantage heading into the Playoffs – 39 extra points. Christian Eckes has 36 extra to start with. While Majeski may carry all the momentum, he enters the round in a distant third with just 21 bonus points from wins and stage wins.
A win for any of the Playoff drivers solves any points problems, though. It would free them from having to worry about the next races in this round, at Bristol and Kansas, and focus instead onto the Round of 8.
However, two drivers will be eliminated after this round, so for every driver who doesn’t win, maximizing points needs to be the priority.
Milwaukee is a tough place to do it, though. The Truck Series has proven time and again that short track racing means beating and banging, so not only speed but also survival is required.
Practice for the Playoff opener is set for 4 p.m. ET on Saturday followed by Cometic Gasket Pole Qualifying at 4:30 p.m. ET.
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