NASCAR race results: Ryan Blaney wins intense regular season finale; playoff field set

Intensity was at its peak for 165 laps, but most of the action came in the final 20 of Saturday’s Cup race at Daytona International Speedway.

The cautions piled up in the final stage as the checkered flag inched closer, and the battle for the last playoff spot grew tighter. By the overtime restart, six of the top 10 leading drivers needed a win to secure a place in NASCAR’s postseason.

Chris Buescher, Corey LaJoie, Austin Dillon, Kevin Harvick, Ross Chastain, Daniel Suárez and Bubba Wallace were among the drivers restarting at the front of the pack after narrowly escaping “The Big One,” which a few laps earlier collected at least 11 cars. With each of those drivers seeking a first win in 2021 (and four aiming for a first career win in the series) the pressure was on.

However, also restarting in the front row was Ryan Blaney, a driver who’s a constant at the end of superspeedway races.

Blaney’s No. 12 Ford launched off a push from LaJoie after the green flag waved and he pulled away from the pack. Harvick trailed Blaney coming to the finish line, but in the final stretch, he was taken out as Suárez and Kurt Busch collected. Chaos ensued for what looked like everyone but Blaney, the winner of the regular season finale. He won his third race of the season and second race in a row after locking in a victory last weekend at Michigan. His latest win came under caution.

“It’s been a fun two weeks,” Blaney said on NBC, crediting LaJoie with the push just as he had done last weekend with Kyle Busch.

“Two weeks in a row (I’ve) gotten really good pushes on restarts, able to win the race, so thanks for that,” Blaney said.

Buescher was unofficially scored second and Wallace finished third, but Buescher’s car was disqualified post-race for a track bar mounting assembly issue.

Kyle Larson clinched the regular season championship, while Tyler Reddick secured the final playoff spot on points driving a car that looked like it had been through 10 “Big Ones.”

“I couldn’t believe we finished seventh,” Reddick said on NBC. “Getting through that last crash coming to the line, it was a lot, I’m not gonna lie.”

The Richard Childress Racing teammates of Reddick and Dillon were in a heated battle for points through each stage, and both suffered disaster at different points in the race. At one point, it was simultaneous.

“This is as stressful as it looks,” Richard Childress Racing’s team twitter account posted.

Reddick’s car was collected in an incident on the backstretch when Martin Truex Jr. went sliding up and across the track and almost directly into William Byron’s car mid-pack. Multiple cars were caught up in the wreck, and Reddick’s car was leaking oil. NASCAR briefly red-flagged the race to clean the track and the No. 8 team got to work under caution by slapping tape around the nose and cleaning fluid under the hood.

“Almost felt helpless there,” Reddick said. “But we didn’t give up and we fought through it.”

Around the same time, Dillon’s No. 3 team was changing a battery for a voltage issue. That occurred just after Dillon received a speeding penalty on pit road in the final stage to set him back in the running order. Both Reddick and Dillon were in the bottom 20 when the race restarted with 10 laps to go. At that point, Dillon needed to beat Reddick by 19 spots to pass him on points for the final playoff berth.

Another caution came out a few laps later for “The Big One” when Chase Elliott and Matt DiBenedetto collected at the front of the pack. Suddenly, multiple drivers who were hungry for their first win sat at the front. Dillon was one of them, but he couldn’t escape the final wreck. He finished 18th.

Reddick secured the spot. He enters the NASCAR Cup Series ranked 15th in the standings for his first postseason appearance. Last year’s regular season champion Harvick is ranked 16th heading into this year’s playoffs. He finished 18th at Daytona after the final crash.

And with his latest win, Blaney jumps to second in the standings behind Larson, who leads the playoff field in points heading to NASCAR’s next race at Darlington. The Cook Out Southern 500 is Sunday at 6 p.m. on NBCSN.

NASCAR playoff drivers 2021

NASCAR race at Daytona finishing order

*Disqualified post-race

This story was originally published August 28, 2021 at 11:16 PM.

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