We’ve seen it for years, ever since the NASCAR Cup Series went to this current playoff format of 16 drivers competing for the championship, in an elimination style tournament. The talking heads and broadcast partners have all touted that if you win, you are in. Even though the mathematics easily proved that it is not the case, since there are 26 regular season races.
If you had nine drivers win two races and eight drivers win one race each, you’d end up with 17 winners and one of them would be on the outside looking in when the cut for the playoffs was made. As we head down the stretch of this season’s regular season schedule, we are still mathematically eligible to have more winners than 16, although the odds are quite slim.
Since we are at a point in the season where it is still possible and it is always fun to play “what if,” let’s take a look at the remainder of the schedule, the drivers without wins, and who can slot into a win at each track to make the magical dream of a winner not making the playoffs a reality. We currently have 10 drivers that have a win, so we need to achieve the magic number of seven winners over the next nine races. Since we’re living in fantasyland anyway, we’ll go for the full Monty of nine winners in nine races who are not currently among the winners.
We head to New Hampshire Motor Speedway this weekend for one of Martin Truex Jr.‘s nine different home tracks. His average finish at NHMS is outstanding and he’s in need of a win. We’ll go ahead and anoint the short-timer with a win now that we know it is his last hurrah.
Next we head to Nashville Superspeedway. We have three races under our belts on the big concrete oval and the driver with the best average finish of 2.7 in those three races in Ross Chastain. It isn’t out of the realm of possibilities to have him smash another melon in victory lane in the Nashville suburbs.
The third race on the remaining schedule is the Chicago street course. Needless to say this is obviously a wildcard that could see a few different people show up as surprise winners. Considering he is, at least at this point, still auditioning for a new ride since he is out at Stewart-Haas Racing, it wouldn’t be too surprising to see Chase Briscoe come through with a win to cement a place in the playoffs and put another notch into his belt that will impress potential bosses.
Three races down and three different winners. Let’s look at the next third of the remaining schedule.
The series heads to Pocono Raceway for the usual test of adaptability. The Tricky Triangle that forces drivers to compromise because they can’t make their car work perfectly in all three corners. It comes down to adaptable drivers and the one who is able to overcome their compromises the best on race day. If you look back in history there is a driver who scored his first win at the track and has been showing some good speed in the first part of this year. If things line up again like they have in the past for him, Chris Buescher could once again hit victory lane at Pocono.
The next race on the schedule, thankfully, is back on the oval at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The racing jewel that is the Brickyard 400 is finally back. No one in the Cup Series is happier to see the oval back than Kyle Busch. The two-time champion initially struggled with self inflicted mistakes this year and has lately been bitten repeatedly by bad luck on the track. Heading into Indy, he is one of two active drivers with a win on the oval and the only driver with eight top 10s in the last 10 races on the oval. Busch is going to shake off the monkey that is plaguing him this year and score the win at the world’s greatest racetrack.
The series takes two weeks off before heading to Richmond Raceway. The last short track before the playoffs and the one where a short track stud who is looking for work will shine to show he deserves a seat in the big leagues. Josh Berry is going to kick butt and take names on the historic Virginia race track and set himself as the 16th driver of the year to win a race. That will set the stage for three races to go and the golden opportunities to see not one but three drivers with wins not make the playoffs.
The series heads off to the Irish Hills of Michigan for the big race in front of the auto makers outside of Detroit. The two-mile oval of Michigan International Speedway has seemed to defy aging since it was repaved in 2012. The surface has finally started to open up the groove and is beginning to look more like the Michigan of old where cars could run from the top to the bottom and everywhere in-between. As that racing returns, you never know what the outcome will be but you can bet there will be multiple drivers in contention to win at the end of the race.
The other thing about Michigan is it always seems to end up with some fuel mileage strategy. Whatever the case, a driver that has won there in the Trucks is going to come through and put his name into the playoff hat with a win, and that is Bubba Wallace. Wallace has scored a Truck win at Michigan before, and it would not be a stretch at all to see him put it in victory lane again as we count down to the playoffs.
The penultimate race of the regular season is on the historic oval at Daytona International Speedway. Superspeedways are always a crap shoot and you never have any idea who will end up surviving to make it to the end and win the race. One might lean toward former Daytona winners like Michael McDowell, Austin Dillon and Justin Haley; any of them could potentially win, and it would not be a surprise.
Again, since we are looking at this through rose-colored glasses, we’re going to throw the checkered flag over the No. 7 ride of Corey LaJoie for his first Cup Series win and his first shot at the playoffs.
That takes us to the final race of the regular season, and that is at the test of man and machine at Darlington Raceway. The egg-shaped oval in the low country of South Carolina will test the mettle of many a driver before it decides who to crown as a winner. Looking at the drivers left, there is still a two-time champ that has not managed to get into the playoffs yet. He changes that as Joey Logano wins at Darlington to be the last winning driver of the regular season. That will give us 19 different winners for the 16 playoff spots.
Will this fantasy come true? It is highly doubtful but not impossible. The greater question to raise is, if this miracle did magically manage to unfold, what would the sanctioning body do? They have given a playoff waiver to someone who didn’t follow the rules for making the playoffs. Would it be beneath them to issue waivers and add three extra people to the playoffs just because they didn’t think more than 16 winners could actually happen? They already let Jeff Gordon into the playoffs after he didn’t earn a spot.
No one would be surprised to see them change the rules on the fly so that 19 winners could all run for a title. While it most likely won’t happen, it sure would be fun to see what would develop if it did.
What is it that Mike Neff doesn’t do? Mike announces several shows each year for the Good Guys Rod and Custom Association. He also pops up everywhere from PRN Pit Reporters and the Press Box with Alan Smothers to SIRIUS XM Radio. He has announced at tracks all over the Southeast, starting at Millbridge Speedway. He's also announced at East Lincoln Speedway, Concord Speedway, Tri-County Speedway, Caraway Speedway, and Charlotte Motor Speedway.