With five races remaining in the NASCAR Cup Series regular season, there are three different groups of teams and drivers.
Locked into the playoffs, wanting playoff points
Not locked into the playoffs, points racing
Not locked into the playoffs, need nothing short of a win
There is some overlap, of course, because those racing for the regular season championship are also points racing due to the playoff points payed out at the end of the regular season good towards each active round of the playoffs.
Those on the playoff bubble are also simultaneously points racing each other while also aiming to win a race before Labor Day weekend.
That’s what makes the second half of a race like The Great American Getaway 400 so fascinating because each of those categories ultimately played a factor into the final results.
Denny Hamlin is currently third on the playoff grid and will most likely be there once the playoffs begin in September barring a not unlikely surge of wins.
Leading the race approaching the second stage break, crew chief Chris Gabehart faced a decision to either take the guaranteed stage win and playoff point at the expense of track position or pit before the stage, giving up the guaranteed playoff point, but also having track position at the start of the race.
It’s not quite that simplistic, as pitting before the stage also means being at a marginal risk of not making it to the finish on fuel, but having a choice is also a luxury.
Similarly, after winning at Iowa last month, Blaney and crew chief Jonathan Hassler can also base their decisions on winning and scoring playoff points. They probably were not going to beat Hamlin straight-up so they short pitted.
But that was also in line with how they mapped the race out from the start, too.
“Yeah, with us, where we were running, when we pitted, probably lap 15 of the race, I feel like that kind of steered our course,” Hassler said. “We lost a little bit of track position. We were really kind of playing the long game. That kind of put us in a position to short pit the third stage and get our track position.”
It paid off with their second win of the season, five more playoff points, even as they made the decision to not pursue stage playoff points.
Five is definitely more than two.
“Really when that happened in the first stage, that set up our whole game plan for the rest of the race.
“We were going to throw away stage points, we are going to try to cycle to the front,” Blaney said. “Just hope it works out in your favor.
“I kind of knew that early. That kind of set us up for the end of the day. I feel like if we were a fifth place at best car, you’d probably go for stage points and then go try to run 10th, have a good points day. I knew early that our car was competitive enough to try to contend for the win, then we kind of migrated to that game plan.”
So on one hand, you look at the No. 12 team, and they currently have the look of a 4-5 seed and they are way better positioned to make a championship run than last year year-over-year.
“It’s always nice when you win your first and get locked in,” Blaney said. “Then it’s how do we finish more and pad your Playoff points. The first round is whacky. You have the Glen, Atlanta, Bristol. The first round is a big curve ball for everybody. The best you can do is just try to pad your stats and give you a little bit of wiggle room if you have things that go wrong.
“Atlanta you can get to lap two and be done. If you have a little bit in the bank it helps you out just a little bit more. That’s kind of the biggest goal right now, is how do you continue to win more races, how do you continue to charge up through there in points with us trying to get Playoff points. How do we get to the top five or so to even get more. That’s a huge thing in our mind right now.
‘Win has been always the top priority for our group. Our team has always been aggressive with how we call races and how we run. We’ve kind of lived and died by that. Sometimes it works for you, sometimes it doesn’t work.”
On Sunday at Pocono, it worked perfectly.
The bubble intensifies
So, then you have to look at the playoff cutoff where Ross Chastain suffered a tremendous disservice with the spin that backed him hard into the wall on Lap 53 … and also backed them into a two-pronged attack for a playoff spot.
Chastain is in a precarious position because he would be bumped should there be a surprise winner over the next five races, one of which is Daytona, but also because he now enjoys just a 27-point advantage over Bubba Wallace for the final spot if there isn’t a new winner.
“I’m just worried about how I spun out,” Chastain said afterwards. “I’m a racecar driver in the Cup Series, I shouldn’t be doing that. You don’t see us do that too often, so when I do it myself, I’m as surprised as everyone else. … I just flat spun out. We’re all sliding around but I just spun out.”
Two weeks ago, Chastain was 66 up, a reflection of what finishes of 33rd, 22nd and 36th can do in short order.
“I don’t know. It’s math, so it’s not gonna help,” Chastain said.
It’s not even about just Daytona looming large but also because Josh Berry continue to look like a driver who could win his way in at any given track. Even Kyle Busch, no matter how badly things have gone, wouldn’t be the biggest shock to find some way to make it happen before Labor Day.
Wallace now has two pathways back into the playoffs, either through winning or through points if he can create some consistency and avoid a surprise winner as well.
Holistically, it provides the next five races a lot of intrigue and interest.
Rowdy’s Streak
Did you know that Kyle Busch is the all-time leader with consecutive Cup Series seasons with at least a single win?
It’s 19 and here’s the full rankings if you’re curious to see it.
There are a lot of reasons for Busch to want to win of these next five races, but even if he can’t and misses the playoffs, he is likely just as motivated at to at least one of the next 15.
Even if it doesn’t count towards a championship run. He said it himself last weekend in Chicago.
“I would say getting to 20 and keeping that streak going is more important to me than winning and making the playoffs,” Busch said. “Yeah.”
Why?
“We would look like Tony Stewart from 2011, when he didn’t want to be there and didn’t deserve to be there, and then went on the streak and won five. I’d love to say we can get on that but time will tell.”
It didn’t look like it on Sunday, of course, racing again in the mid-pack and getting spun by Corey Lajoie after a block down the straightaway.
This was his sixth finish of 27th or worse in his last eight races and fifth DNF in his past six races.
Busch, didn’t even have it in him to be ‘Rowdy’ about after being released from infield care, looking almost resigned to this being just how it is right now.
“You have mirrors and cameras and everything else so you try to get in front of the run that’s coming and I was trying to get in front of that run and sometimes some don’t lift [behind you going] kamikaze,” Busch said.
For what it’s worth, Lajoie said both bluntly in real-time over his radio but a little more softly after the race to FOX Sport’s Bob Pockrass that he just wasn’t in a position to lift.
“I got to the left rear of [Busch] and he blocked it once and I just kind of held the wheel straight and I was almost anticipating our bumpers kind of lining up and giving him a little bit of a shove — but when he blocked it the second time, it turned him across my nose,” LaJoie said.
The streak that may end the streak lived on.
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.