Harrison Burton won when he absolutely needing nothing less than a victory and now Bubba Wallace and Ross Chastain face the same dilemma next weekend in the regular season NASCAR Cup Series finale at Darlington Raceway.
The Southern 500.
Although, technically, Wallace does not need to win his way into the playoffs as he faces just a 21-point deficit to Chris Buescher ahead of him but his advancement likely depends on some bad luck to befall the RFK Racing No. 17.
Wallace overcame some slight involvement in an earlier crash to finish sixth but it wasn’t enough to make ground on Buescher, who finished 10th with Burton driving to Victory Lane.
More than anything else, Wallace was just frustrated at the number of wins and good finishes he had given up while teammate Tyler Reddick in an identically prepared car is leading the championship with two wins and already preparing for a championship run.
“We have one car fighting for a regular season championship and another car right around the bubble,” Wallace said after finishing fifth at Daytona. “It’s unacceptable. I’ll take all of that weight on my shoulders – should have won multiple times this year and we haven’t. We don’t deserve to be here, and we are.
“I’ve got to go win next week. That’s it.”
Similar to Wallace, Chastain overcame his own involvement in an earlier crash and finished 12th even after losing a lap earlier in the race.
Like Wallace, none of that matters now.
“I look at it like we have another chance to go win the Southern 500,” the Trackhouse Racing driver said. “That’s what I’m focused on this week. The points, they give them out at the stages and end of the race. If you run well, they give you a lot of them. I just get excited for a chance to go win the Southern 500.”
Martin Truex Jr. + 58
Ty Gibbs + 39
Chris Buescher + 21
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Bubba Wallace -21
Ross Chastain -27
Buescher nearly won the spring race at Darlington, a run-in with Tyler Reddick denying him an automatic transfer into the playoffs that would have made this summer a moot point.
“Yeah, I mean, we go into Darlington points being what they are, yeah, a little bit of a cushion there,” Buescher said. “We know we were really good there last time. Try and seal the deal this go-around and make it easy going into the Playoffs.”