Daytona race to finalize playoff lineup with 2 spots up for grabs

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) — NASCAR returns to Daytona International Speedway to finalize its 16-car playoff lineup, with two spots up for grabs and a win-and-you're-in opportunity for any driver yet to visit victory lane this season. Tyler Reddick and Alex Bowman hold the final two tenuous positions in the Cup Series points standings heading into Saturday night's race, but neither is locked into the championship chase. Reddick is last year's regular-season champion and even made it to the title-deciding finale, and Bowman drives for mighty Hendrick Motorsports, a team expected to have all four drivers in the playoffs every year. Reddick has a 29-point advantage over Bowman and was runner-up to William Byron — this year's regular-season champion — in the Daytona 500. But there's no guarantee he will join 23XI Racing teammate Bubba Wallace in the playoff field: a first-time winner Saturday would claim one of the open spots, and if Bowman outpoints Reddick at Daytona, Bowman would get the second shot. Reddick has an average finish of 23rd at Daytona, which ranks as his worst among active tracks, and he was a season-low 34th at Richmond last week. Bowman, meanwhile, is the only Hendrick driver without a win this season and holds a 60-point lead over Ryan Preece of RFK Motorsports for the final spot in the playoff field. Bowman statistically holds an advantage — he has four top 10s in his last five starts at Daytona and his average finish of 8.6 in the last 10 races is best among full-time drivers — while Preece has finished 31st or worse in four of the last five races at Daytona. It's no consolation to Bowman, who had to defend himself from constant chatter during 2024 that he wasn't worthy of his seat at Hendrick. "I am incredibly stressed out. Anyone who knows me knows I stress myself out over every situation. That's just me. I can't avoid it," Bowman said. "I think for me, walking out of there Saturday night, as long as we maximized what we could, did the things that we can control correctly and didn't mess it up on our side, whatever the result is, I'm sure we'll have a shot at it." Bowman has only missed the playoffs once (2023) in eight seasons with Hendrick. Other contenders Front Row Motorsports does not have a driver qualified for the playoffs but has won the pole for six of the last nine races on drafting tracks, which consists of Daytona and Talladega. For Ricky Stenhouse Jr., a win would get him into the playoffs and all four of his Cup Series career victories have come on drafting tracks. He won the 2023 Daytona 500 but has not finished higher than 18th in four Daytona races since. Richard Childress Racing received a boost last week when Austin Dillon won at Richmond to earn a playoff spot, but Kyle Busch is still on the outside. Busch was runner-up at Daytona last August, but he doesn't return to the track with any momentum: Busch has not led a lap in the last 13 races, the longest streak in his career. Chris Buescher of RFK Racing could be a spoiler Saturday with four top 10s, including a win, in his last five starts at Daytona. But he's also battling his boss, team co-owner Brad Keselowski, who must win to make the playoffs. Keselowski has seven wins on drafting tracks, none, though, since 2021 at Talladega. And he's logged an average finish of 23.8 at Daytona since his 2016 victory on the superspeedway. Win and in Only two times in this playoff format has a driver won the final regular-season race to come from below the cutline to claim the final spot in the playoffs. Dillon did it at Daytona in 2022 and Chase Briscoe did it last year at Darlington. Erik Jones thinks it can be done again. Jones, at 23rd in the standings, has to win to make the playoffs for Legacy Motor Club. He won at Daytona in 2018 when he drove for Joe Gibbs Racing and likes that the finale is back at Daytona, host from 2020 to 2023, before Darlington got it last year. "I think there are some places we could have gone to this weekend that we'd say, 'Well, this is probably it for us; we'll just try to do the best we can and finish as high in points as we can,'" Jones said. "But I think there's honestly a lot of optimism for (Daytona). Our year could change very quickly. There's no reason why we couldn't win here. That's the way I like to look at it. We definitely feel like (Saturday) could be a big night." Odds and ends Team Penske teammates Ryan Blaney and Joey Logano are the plus-1000 betting favorites, per BetMGM. ... Team Penske since 2023 has led 1,123 of 3,392 laps raced on drafting tracks (33%), more than three times the laps led by any other team. ... Team Penske is the only team with three different drivers — Blaney, Logano and Austin Cindric — to win a drafting track race in the Next Gen era. ... Cindric's win at Talladega ensured Team Penske has won at least once on a drafting track in 12 straight seasons (2014 through 2025). ___ AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing