Time flies when you’re having fun, and the NASCAR Xfinity Series is one race at Charlotte Motor Speedway away from being halfway through its regular season.
With that, six of the 12 playoff spots are already filled, with other top drivers in the series needing a win to lock themselves into a run at the championship.
For some drivers, a win would finally put them on a path to be considered a title contender. For others, they just need a win to ensure a strong season doesn’t go to waste. With the series returning from a two-week break this weekend, there’s five drivers that stand out as being under the most pressure to win before the regular season ends.
Sam Mayer
This isn’t a case of desperately needing a win to get into the playoffs. Those are reserved for later on in this list. Mayer is currently third overall in the standings with a 98-point cushion to the cut line.
Only Justin Allgaier and Austin Hill have more top-five finishes than Mayer this season. The duo at the top of the standings have a few other things Mayer doesn’t have yet: wins and a bounty of playoff points. Allgaier and Hill have a combined five wins and 35 playoff points between them. Mayer isn’t just winless, he has just one playoff point through a dozen races.
Mayer has contended plenty early, but there’s one particularly important piece to the remaining regular season where he should get over the hump. Amongst the 14 remaining races until the playoffs, there’s a whopping five road courses where Mayer has the majority of his Xfinity Series wins.
If Mayer’s time with JR Motorsports is any indication, his success tends to have a snowball effect over the course of his season. So once Mayer gets into victory lane for the first time with Haas Factory Team, look out.
Sheldon Creed
On the other side of the Haas Factory garage, Sheldon Creed has still yet to take that step toward finally winning in the Xfinity Series. As a matter of fact, he may have taken a step back.
Creed has four DNFs, including three in the last four races. Some of it has come down to bad luck, like his wreck at Bristol Motor Speedway with Brennan Poole, but it still puts him on the bubble only 11 points ahead of Daniel Dye. That’s the bad news.
Th good news is he’s got the speed and team to be a winner, but it doesn’t feel like he’s among the class of the field like he was last year with Joe Gibbs Racing. His only runner-up finish this season came in the chaotic finish at Martinsville Speedway. He’s had good performances — an average finish of 8.1 in races he has finished — but he’s yet to contend for a win outside of a superspeedway yet.
To break through and lock himself into the postseason, Creed and crew chief Jonathan Toney might have to steal one with pit strategy or something out of the ordinary to put the No. 00 in a position to win again.
Ryan Sieg
Maybe it’s a nice consultation or maybe it’s salt in the wound, but the truth is that Ryan Sieg no longer has to worry about last year at Texas Motor Speedway being his one and only opportunity to win in the Xfinity Series.
Already in 2025, Sieg has been in contention to win at a trio of races. That includes at Rockingham Speedway, where he led the most laps before being caught up in a late wreck. His five top-10 finishes are the most he’s had through 12 races since 2023, when he nabbed seven en route to making the postseason.
This season might be the perfect storm for Sieg to finally collect his first checkered flag after nearly 400 starts. The struggles of some of the rookies in top equipment, plus the field of full-time Ford teams being so small, has opened the door for the veteran Sieg to find himself in great spots at the end of races.
That said, those opportunities aren’t going to be available every week or as often as those like the Kaulig Racing or Joe Gibbs Racing cars on the outside looking in. He’s 24 points above the cut line now, in 10th, but two victors from outside the current field puts Sieg in a familiar spot: on the bubble, fighting for points while praying there’s no new winners. He can avoid that with a long overdue win.
Harrison Burton
It’s not a surprise that Harrison Burton has managed to find himself in the playoff conversation upon his return to the Xfinity Series. It’s surprising considering he’s doing it on a team that couldn’t catch a break last season.
AM Racing had just two top-10 results all of last season — both with Joey Logano behind the wheel — in a year that saw multiple mid-season personnel changes. Burton had the No. 25 off to a respectable start with top 10s at Daytona International Speedway and Atlanta Motor Speedway. Then, he won a stage at Circuit of the Americas before an engine failure seemed to bring the team back to earth once again.
But then something happened. The team started hanging around the top 10 more often. Now, they enter the back half of the regular season above the cut line by 14 points. It’s a great position for the team to find themselves in, but the question is if it’s sustainable. What the team might need is an upset like Burton managed with Wood Brothers Racing last season. Otherwise, they’ll be on the outside looking in with new winners.
Taylor Gray
Taylor Gray is the only one of these drivers outside the playoffs currently, so the need to win might seem a little stronger than others. But Gray has two things that nobody outside of the playoff field has.
For one, he’s got Joe Gibbs Racing equipment. Aric Almirola and Brandon Jones already have victories for the team this year. Then, there’s the fact Gray has been right there on multiple occasions this season. As the races in the regular season wind down, Martinsville will loom large as well as his runner-up finish at Texas.
While teammate William Sawalich is likely not in a place to win this season, Gray’s shown he can. And while we may grade Sawalich on a curve the rest of the year, Gray’s performance through the first half of the regular season — which includes five top 10s — will be under the same scrutiny the rest of this rookie class has been under since coming into the season with considerable hype.
If Carson Kvapil, Nick Sanchez or Christian Eckes can find victory lane this year, it’ll put the No. 54 team even further down the playoff pecking order.
James Krause joined Frontstretch in March 2024 as a contributor. Krause was born and raised in Illinois and graduated from Northern Illinois University. He currently works in La Crosse, Wisconsin as a local sports reporter, including local short track racing. Outside of racing, Krause loves to keep up with football, music, anime and video games.