DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Five NASCAR Cup Series regular-season races remain, four drivers are currently playoff eligible based on points and three more are within striking distance. Plus, there‘s a new championship leader, Chase Elliott.
That‘s the situation as the series moves to Indianapolis Motor Speedway this weekend for Sunday’s Brickyard 400 presented by PPG (2 p.m. ET, TNT Sports, truTV, HBO Max, IMS Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
A thrilling 400-miler at Dover Motor Speedway only heightened the dramatic expectations of the five remaining races — at Indianapolis, Iowa Speedway, Watkins Glen International, Richmond Raceway and Daytona International Speedway.
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Last year‘s regular-season champ, 23XI Racing‘s Tyler Reddick, is tops in points among those without a win — 156 points above the elimination line. Hendrick Motorsports‘ Alex Bowman, RFK Racing’s Chris Buescher and Reddick‘s teammate Bubba Wallace round out the fortunate four above the line heading to Indianapolis.
However, only a slight 16 points separate Wallace from RFK Racing’s Ryan Preece, who is below the line. Two-time series champion, Richard Childress Racing‘s Kyle Busch is 39 points below the line and Joe Gibbs Racing‘s Ty Gibbs is a more distant 52 points off the pace.
The outstanding news for fans is that these final five venues are as unpredictable as they are diverse. Outside of road-course ace Shane van Gisbergen possibly working his magic at Watkins Glen, there are no absolute odds-on favorites to win at any of the upcoming tracks.
Among the four drivers in the playoff field on points, only Bowman and Buescher have NASCAR Cup Series wins at any of these tracks. Bowman won in spring of 2021 at Richmond, and Buescher has victories in 2023 at Richmond and Daytona and is the defending race winner at Watkins Glen.
As for the closest contenders to that playoff line, Preece and Gibbs are still racing for their first career Cup Series victory. The two-time former champ Busch, however, has Cup Series wins at four of the next five tracks.
Precedence also bodes well for a group of drivers further down the championship standings needing a race win. HYAK Racing‘s Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Richard Childress Racing‘s Austin Dillon, for example, have both won the Daytona 500 and a summer race at the big track.
RFK team owner/driver Brad Keselowski has won at Indianapolis, Richmond and Daytona. Spire Motorsports teammates Michael McDowell and Justin Haley both have Daytona victories.
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Not to be overshadowed in all the playoff eligibility drama at the bottom of the eligibility rankings is who will win the hotly contested regular-season championship trophy.
Hendrick Motorsports is poised for a big trophy hoist; it could be just a matter of who is doing the hoisting. Elliott‘s resurgence coupled with his teammate William Byron‘s summer slump have created more drama atop the standings.
Elliott‘s sixth-place finish on Sunday at Dover — he also led 238 laps — coupled with his teammate Byron‘s 31st-place finish gave Elliott the championship lead (by 16 points) for the first time this season.
Elliott, driver of the No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, has finished sixth or better in five of the last six races, including a win at Atlanta, while Byron has three DNFs in the last four races and only a pair of top-20 finishes in the last seven.
Elliott‘s only two wins at the remaining regular-season tracks, however, came at Watkins Glen, where he earned his first career NASCAR Cup Series win in 2018 and answered with another the next year. Byron won in 2023 at Watkins Glen and scored his first series win in the summer of 2020 at Daytona. He also has back-to-back Daytona 500 victories.
Their teammate, 2021 series champion Larson — who is ranked third, 38 points off Elliott — has had a similarly disappointing summer stretch. His fourth-place at Dover marks only his second top 10 in the last six races. As with Byron, however, he has a strong resume at the remaining five tracks with a pair of wins at Richmond and Watkins Glen and he goes into this weekend as the defending Indianapolis Motor Speedway race winner.
“It‘s good to get a top-five finish and get back on the horse there,” Larson said of his work at Dover. “Hopefully we can string together some good runs now.”
Not to be lost in all the championship talk is the In-Season Challenge $1 million-to-win finale this week pitting Ty Gibbs and Ty Dillon — grandsons of team owners (Joe Gibbs and Richard Childress, respectively). Whoever finishes higher at Indy claims the big check.
It all makes for a compelling run for playoff contention. No matter where you are in the championship standings there is plenty still to be decided.
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