Mother Nature halted the running of the FireKeepers Casino 400 at Michigan International Speedway after just 51 of 200 laps were run on Sunday (Aug. 18), postponing the conclusion of the race to Monday morning.
Nearly 24 hours and two overtimes later, it was Tyler Reddick who crossed the finish line first, collecting his second win of the 2024 season, as well as fifth top five in the past six races.
Michigan marked the third-to-last race of the NASCAR Cup Series regular season, ramping up the urgency for drivers looking to grab one of the final playoff spots with a win or points. That intensity led to creative pit calls from teams on the bubble in the Irish Hills.
Chris Buescher Outfoxes Playoff Cut Line Foes
Chris Buescher arrived in The Mitten State tied with Ross Chastain on the playoff cut line, holding the 16th and final playoff position via a tiebreaker. While the No. 17 RFK Racing team did not leave Michigan with an all-important win, they now have a little margin for error with a 16-point gap above the cut line.
This is due in no small part to a late strategy call by No. 17 crew chief Scott Graves.
On lap 196, Buescher came down pit road for four tires and fuel under caution, falling back to 18th from a top-10 spot. Over the course of two overtimes, Buescher made the most of the fresh rubber by rallying to a sixth-place finish, overcoming his involvement in the big crash on lap 115.
“It was a good strategy call, a good call to do something different for us,” Buescher told NBC Sports post-race. “Ultimately, our chance of winning this thing had gone away.
“We were able to pass a bunch of cars [at the end.] It was wild, but heckuva a way to salvage a day that should have been better anyway.”
Meanwhile, Chastain and Bubba Wallace, Buescher’s chief rivals on the playoff bubble, settled for 25th and 26th, respectively. Chastain spun out during the first overtime, while Wallace sustained significant left-front damage in the lap 115 incident.
When the playoff field is set after Darlington in a couple of weeks, the late pit decision by Graves could prove to be the difference between the No. 17 team making or missing the playoffs.
2-Tire Call Almost Pays Off for Kyle Busch
Kyle Busch’s struggles during the 2024 season have been well documented, including in several editions of this very column. Those issues have put Busch and the No. 8 team in a must-win scenario to make the playoffs.
Busch’s strategy odyssey began on Sunday when No. 8 crew chief Randall Burnett kept him on the racetrack for pit stops following stage one. This gave Busch the chance to restart on the front row and lead some laps once the race resumed on Monday.
“So we had to get outside our box,” Burnett told Frontstretch’s Mark Kristl about the No. 8’s pit strategy. “We weren’t going to be able to outrun a couple of those cars straight up because a couple of them had a little bit better speed than us. We had to figure out a way to put ourselves in position to be in front of them.”
Following a lap 91 pit stop, Busch again stayed out during a caution late in stage two to collect his first stage win of 2024 and a playoff point, should he make the 16-driver field.
Busch, Burnett and the No. 8 crew made their bid for a victory by taking just two right-side tires on lap 167, cycling Busch off pit road ahead of William Byron, Reddick and the other leaders. While Busch did not get a much-needed checkered flag, the gains in track position vaulted him to a fourth-place finish, his first top-five result since Dover nearly four months ago.
“We had fresher lefts, and we didn’t need as much fuel, so we only needed two tires at that point,” Burnett said about the 167 pit stop. “That was to jump in front of those guys and make them pass us instead of us trying to figure out how to pass them.”
Can Busch and the No. 8 team use the momentum from Michigan to pull of a clutch, playoff-clinching win at Daytona or Darlington? That will be storyline to follow over the next two weeks.
Look Ahead to Next Week
The NASCAR Cup Series will make its second trip to Daytona International Speedway this season for the running of the Coke Zero Sugar 400 on Saturday, Aug. 24 at 7:30 p.m. on NBC.
Given the nature of superspeedway racing, teams will be looking to maximize track position to decrease their likelihood of getting caught up in The Big One. It will also be critical for drivers and pit crews to avoid penalties in order to stay with the lead draft at the World Center of Racing.
Andrew Stoddard joined Frontstretch in May of 2022 as an iRacing contributor. He is a graduate of Hampden-Sydney College, the University of Richmond, and VCU. He works as an athletic communications specialist at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Va.