Points Are Tight at Top and Bottom of Grid with Two Races Left Until Playoffs
The NASCAR Cup Series regular season championship and final Playoff berth battles are coming down to the wire. After Monday's FireKeepers Casino 400 at Michigan International Speedway, two races remain until the NASCAR Cup Series Playoff field is officially set and the chase for the Bill France Cup, the trophy awarded to the NASCAR Cup Series champion, can commence.
RELATED: 2024 NASCAR Cup Series Standings After Michigan
After a two-overtime restart attempt finish on Monday, ultimately won by 23XI Racing's Tyler Reddick, there are some ultra-tight point races at the top and bottom of the Playoff grid.
Reddick Moves to Top of Regular Season Standings
Let's start with the regular season championship race, which saw a big swing from top to bottom in the four-driver breakaway at Michigan International Speedway.
On the strength of his second win of the 2024 season and an impressive run of consistency over the last couple of months, Reddick has assumed the regular season point lead by 10 markers over Hendrick Motorsports driver Chase Elliott.
The 28-year-old Reddick is on a seven-race top-10 finishing streak, and in that span, Reddick has recorded five top-three finishes. Expanding things further, Reddick has 10 top-10 finishes in his last 11 starts. The Corning, California native's average finish over the last 11 races is a staggering 5.55, and he has already eclipsed his previous career-highs in top-five finishes, 11, and top-10s, 17. Reddick's previous career-high was 10 top-fives in 2022 and 2023, and 16 top-10 finishes in 2021 and 2023. He has 12 races left this season to pad those stats.
Not only has Reddick set career-highs in top-fives and top-10s, but the driver leads the entire NASCAR Cup Series in both categories after 24 races this season. He has two more top-fives than the next closest competitor and four more top-10s than the next closest. In the parity era that has ensued with the adaptation of the Next Gen car, that is an unfathomable stat.
Heading into his incredible 11-race run, which currently has him atop the standings, Reddick sat sixth in the regular season championship standings, 90 points out of the lead. He's had a 100-point swing in his driver standings position since then.
But even with the massive swing, and his second win of the season, Reddick hasn't locked up the 15 Playoff Points, which come with winning the NASCAR Cup Series regular season yet, not even close. Standing ahead of him are Daytona International Speedway, where the big one lurks around every corner, and Darlington Raceway, the most difficult oval track on the schedule.
You want to talk about big point swings, Daytona and Darlington are more than capable of producing those. And with the top-four drivers all being within 32 points of each other, every one of them has a chance of walking out of the 2.5-mile superspeedway in Daytona Beach with the point lead this weekend.
While Reddick leads Elliott by 10 points, Elliott lost a slew of points on the final lap of Monday's race. While battling with Ryan Blaney and Brad Keselowski in a three-wide situation for the fifth position, Elliott's car washed up the track, and he collided with Blaney. That caused both drivers to lose their momentum, and with it, a lot of track position.
One point could be all the difference between winning the regular season championship or not.
— NASCAR on NBC (@NASCARonNBC) August 19, 2024
Chase Elliott and Ryan Blaney both lost spots on the final lap after this contact. #NASCAR pic.twitter.com/dpLFeCLeY7
Elliott would drop to 15th, which, if you're keeping score at home is 10 points less than if he would have finished fifth. That was the difference for Reddick, who took over the point lead this weekend, and it very well could be the difference for Elliott if the battle remains close through Darlington.
Denny Hamlin sits third, 28 points back after rebounding from an early-race spin to finish ninth.
Kyle Larson, who was the point leader heading into Michigan, now finds himself 32 points behind after crashing out of Monday's race and being credited with a 34th-place finish. If these four drivers find trouble, don't be surprised if Ryan Blaney (-82 points) or William Byron (-86 points), who are both excellent superspeedway racers, sneak into the hunt of the regular season championship battle heading into Darlington.
Gibbs, Buescher Bolster Playoff Hopes; Ross Chastain, Bubba Wallace One Point Apart for Final Playoff Berth
While the top of the NASCAR Cup Series regular season standings is tight, the fight for the final spots in the Playoffs is even more unreal.
While the Playoff picture became clearer for Ty Gibbs and Chris Buescher this weekend, it became an uncertain mess for Bubba Wallace and Ross Chastain. The crazy thing about it is that Chastain and Wallace had good cars in Michigan. However, Lady Luck dealt them a bad hand.
Wallace, who entered the day three points above the Playoff cutline, took the lead with a dramatic three-wide pass on Kyle Larson and Denny Hamlin on Lap 35 on Sunday and looked to be heading to a Stage win for the second time in his last three races.
Bubba Wallace PASSED THEM BOTH.
— NASCAR on NBC (@NASCARonNBC) August 18, 2024
He rockets to the race lead past Denny Hamlin and Kyle Larson. #NASCAR pic.twitter.com/oqYNDJTNsO
However, Hamlin would spin out from the second position a few laps later to bring out the first caution of the race with five laps left in Stage 1.
DENNY HAMLIN SPINS RACING FOR THE LEAD!
— NASCAR on NBC (@NASCARonNBC) August 18, 2024
📺 : USA Network | #NASCAR pic.twitter.com/msvPvPdDgG
As Wallace and the majority of the field hit pit road for tires and fuel, Ryan Blaney and a few others stayed on track, inherited track position, and Blaney took the Stage win. Still, Wallace had a great car under him, and after rain pushed the conclusion of the race to Monday, it looked like Wallace would be a potential contender for the win. Then, misfortune struck.
On Lap 116, Larson lost control of his No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet in Turn 4 and spun directly into Wallace's No. 23 machine. The 23XI Racing driver would sustain damage, which would hamper his performance for the remainder of the race. Wallace would finish 26th.
THAT'S A LOT OF DAMAGE.
— NASCAR on NBC (@NASCARonNBC) August 19, 2024
Kyle Larson, Bubba Wallace, Christopher Bell, Chris Buescher and MORE INVOLVED. #NASCAR
📺 : USA Network pic.twitter.com/MUop6Dx8pt
While it was an unideal finish to what was looking like a good race for Wallace, he found solace in the speed that his race car had.
"Guys did a good job. That's all you can ask for," Wallace said. "Showed up with speed and be competitive. Put your name in the hat. That's what we did, so, thank you."
The saving grace for Wallace was that Chastain would finish just one spot higher in 25th. However, heading into an overtime finish restart, the driver of the No. 1 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet looked to be in prime position to pad his point advantage over Wallace for the final Playoff berth spot.
As he launched from the 10th spot on the first overtime attempt, Alex Bowman would collide with the outside wall on the backstretch ahead of Chastain. This would buckle the field up, and Chastain would go for a spin in the chaos. His potential top-10 run was dashed.
"Yeah, I saw [Bowman] hit the wall, and I was spinning. I don't know," Chastain said about his late-race spin.
And with that, Chastain now carries a slim one-point advantage over Wallace for the final Playoff spot heading into one of NASCAR's most unpredictable races -- the night race at Daytona International Speedway. Let's also not forget that if a driver from below Wallace in the point standings wins the race, it will all be a moot point as Buescher would drop to the final driver on the Playoff grid, and that would be the new target for Chastain and Wallace.
"I don't feel very peachy right now," Chastain added.
Gibbs, who was only 18 points above the Playoff cutline heading into Michigan, scored a third-place finish, which snapped a streak of three-straight finishes outside of the top-20. With the good run at the 2-mile oval, Gibbs now has a 39-point cushion on Wallace, who is now the first driver on the outside looking in. While he would have preferred to pick up his first career win to solidify his Playoff hopes, Gibbs feels a little more comfortable heading into Daytona than he expected to be feeling after Monday's good finish.
“Yeah, for sure. It definitely is good to have a good points day," Gibbs explained. "Definitely wish we could have won and locked ourselves in. Winning usually takes care of everything. Thankful to be here and thankful to have a good day.”
Buescher now sits 16 points to the good, despite coming into the weekend as the final driver in the Playoff grid thanks to a tiebreaker over Chastain. For Buescher, a sixth-place run coupled with the rough finishes for Chastain and Wallace helped boost his bid to make the Playoffs for a second consecutive season. However, Buescher had a bit of luck on his side as well.
The driver of the No. 17 RFK Racing Ford Mustang was involved in the same Lap 116 crash, which foiled Wallace's day, and Buescher actually suffered some pretty sizable damage to the front end of his race car in the crash. Somehow, someway, the No. 17 machine was still able to compete at a high level, and just missed out on a top-five finish.
It should be a dramatic final couple of weeks of the regular season for the drivers still looking to secure their place in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoff field.
Toby Christie is the Editor-in-Chief of Racing America. He has 15 years of experience as a motorsports journalist and has been with Racing America since 2023.