NASCAR’s season finale is tonight at Daytona. Playoff points bubble pits 2 teammates

One playoff spot remains in NASCAR’s 2021 regular season and it will be determined in a single race at Daytona International Speedway on Saturday. Two drivers, especially, are feeling the pressure on points.

“This is one of those big moments in our year,” Tyler Reddick told reporters this week. “We’ve been preparing and working really hard to kick (butt) in moments like these.”

Reddick is fired up, but not “panicking” ahead of the superspeedway race, he said. His No. 8 Chevrolet team enters the weekend with a 25-point buffer over Richard Childress Racing teammate Austin Dillon and his No. 3 team just outside the 16-driver cutoff.

Like last season when Hendrick Motorsports drivers William Byron and Jimmie Johnson battled on the points bubble for a postseason berth, teammates will again be pitted against each other in the final race of the regular season. Previously, Reddick said that the RCR teams continued cooperative information sharing leading up to the finale, but now that it’s here and there’s only one spot on the line, have they discussed strategy?

“We can’t, honestly,” Reddick said. “I’m in, he’s out. There’s a 25-point gap. Anything I do to help him hurts me. Anything he does to help me hurts him, so we really can’t work together at all, unfortunately.”

He said that while the teams will be fighting for a place in the postseason, they’re on the same page about wanting an RCR car to advance over others. Given the unpredictability of the track, it’s entirely possible that a new winner emerges. Michael McDowell scored his first career Cup win at the Daytona 500 to start the season.

Last year, Byron won his first race in the series at the regular season cutoff event. With an early win this year at Homestead, Byron is locked into playoffs behind series leader Kyle Larson, Martin Truex Jr., Alex Bowman, Kyle Busch, Ryan Blaney, Chase Elliott and Joey Logano, in order of playoff points. The rest of the top 15 drivers follow: Kurt Busch, Brad Keselowski, Christopher Bell, McDowell, Aric Almirola, Denny Hamlin and Kevin Harvick.

“For us, it’s about having fun, trying to go out there and get another win and continue to try to learn some things and build some things for Talladega,” Byron said.

He noted NASCAR’s changes to the superspeedway rules aimed at reducing horsepower and slowing speeds in response to Logano’s airborne wreck at Talladega earlier this year. NASCAR has removed a wicker bill from the car spoiler, and reduced tapered spacer holes on the cars to limit airflow to the engines, and thus horsepower. With the updated package, NASCAR expects cars to run at 450 horsepower (previously 510 horsepower) and a speed reduction of seven to 10 miles per hour for the two remaining superspeedway races this season.

“That’s gonna play a role, too, in trying to learn the draft, to try to learn the aero package in the playoffs,” Byron said. “So I just try to take the temperature on the draft and what’s a safe position to be in and if I can be up from the whole race, then great. But if I get shuffled back and it feels too dicey, then I’ll try to make it to the end.”

While Reddick and Dillon are able to make it into the postseason on points, they can also clinch a berth with a win, as could many others. Matt DiBenedetto, Chris Buescher, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Ross Chastain, Bubba Wallace, Chase Briscoe, Erik Jones, Daniel Suárez, Ryan Newman, Ryan Preece, Cole Custer, Corey LaJoie and Anthony Alfredo would advance to the round of 16 with a win on Saturday. The drivers on the bubble know that, too.

“There are gonna be drivers who have nothing to lose and everything to gain by winning that race,” Reddick said. “And it’s going to make for a very, very chaotic finish to the regular season.”

Larson is in position to win the regular season championship, but Hamlin, who still hasn’t won a race this year, could pull off an upset with top stage and race finishes, depending on how others finish. He sits 28 points behind Larson. While some teams will prioritize stage points and others will shoot for the win, one thing is almost guaranteed.

“It’s gonna get wild at some point in this race,” Reddick said. “So we’re gonna have to try and stay ahead of it or be aware of it and keep our eyes out for it as well ... We can’t fight for the win if we’re crashed out before we get to the white flag.”

The Coke Zero Sugar 400 is at 7 p.m. EST on NBC.

*Drivers in bold are locked into the postseason, top 16 advance to playoff field

Alexandra Andrejev

The Charlotte Observer

NASCAR and Charlotte FC beat reporter Alex Andrejev joined The Observer in January 2020 following an internship at The Washington Post. She is a two-time APSE award winner for her NASCAR beat coverage and National Motorsports Press Association award winner. She is the host of McClatchy’s podcast “Payback” about women’s soccer. Support my work with a digital subscription