For the second week in a row, RFK Racing placed two cars in the top five. At the Brickyard 400, Ryan Preece earned a fourth-place finish, with teammate and team owner Brad Keselowski just behind him in fifth. One week later at Iowa Speedway, it was Keselowski who led the charge for RFK, winning both stages and scoring a third-place finish. Preece had a strong third stage and was within sight of the leaders late in the race. He ultimately finished fifth behind winner William Byron, Chase Briscoe, Keselowski and Ryan Blaney.
Preece’s finish could be crucial to getting him into the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs. He arrived at Iowa 42 points below the cut line, chasing the third RFK driver, Chris Buescher. Buescher struggled at Iowa to a 22nd-place finish, allowing Preece to cut the gap down to 23 points.
However, the team’s best performance on Sunday was by the boss. Keselowski led 68 laps on his way to his third top five in the last six races. Those finishes have not done much to help Keselowski in terms of the playoffs, as he still finds himself 121 points below Buescher with three races to go in the regular season.
With time running out before the playoffs begin, you have to wonder if things are getting awkward at the RFK race shop. It is possible that the last spot in the playoffs could come down to a points battle between Buescher and Preece. There is also the case of Keselowski, who will not factor into the points battle but could still take a playoff spot with a victory. One of his best chances will be at Richmond Raceway, where he has won twice and finished in the top 10 in half of his 30 starts there. Keselowski is also one of the best in the business at drafting tracks and could earn a win in the regular season finale at Daytona International Speedway. Keselowski may be a longshot compared to his teammates, but he still has options for reaching the playoffs.
How does a team in RFK’s position prioritize, knowing that the success of one of their drivers could have serious implications for the playoff hopes of another? Although there is no clear solution to the problem, Preece’s post-race comments at Iowa did give some insight into how the ending of that race unfolded.
“On that restart, when we were able to get to third, I thought we were going to have a shot at it, and it seemed like we could close in on the 19 and 24 a little bit,” Preece said. “And then I just got loose. And when Brad was catching me, I thought of, what’s the best thing to do for a teammate and the company? And (I) wanted to give him the opportunity, even if it was at a deficit for us.
“All three of us can still get in,” Preece added. “It’s going to take a lot of perseverance, and a lot of luck, but we have fast race cars, and we can get the job done.”
Preece is correct that all three RFK drivers can still reach the playoffs. The most direct way would be for all three to win, but the team should not count on that happening. Keselowski has earned one win in a full-field race since joining the team and taking on an ownership role. Preece has never won a Cup Series race. Buescher is the driver who has done the most of the winning for RFK, and his achievements include victories at Watkins Glen International, Richmond and Daytona. If any RFK driver wins his way into the playoffs, it would most likely be Buescher.
However, Buescher cannot go for broke with Preece so close behind him. The No. 17 team must still think about points, either to protect their advantage over Buescher or try to make up 40 points on Alex Bowman, who is 15th in the playoff grid. The 14th spot is held by Tyler Reddick, who stands 122 points ahead of Preece and 99 ahead of Buescher. It is not mathematically impossible for either driver to surpass Reddick with the time they have left, but it would take a massive collapse by Reddick and huge points days for the RFK drivers.
Unfortunately for RFK, it is more likely that the team gets shut out of the playoffs. Suppose somebody follows Harrison Burton’s path from last year and wins at Daytona from deep in the points standings. There can only be a maximum of 16 different winners in the regular season this year, so any new winner from this point forward qualifies for the playoffs without question. Unless Buescher or Preece had made up their deficits to Bowman, both would be on the outside looking in.
Missing the playoffs completely would be a bitter pill to swallow for RFK, especially due to the penalties the team incurred earlier in the season. Preece lost 39 points after getting disqualified at Talladega Superspeedway. Buscher received a 60-point penalty after the race at Kansas Speedway back in May, although the penalty was reduced to 30 points on appeal. In a battle where every point counts, those penalties are going to loom large until the playoff field is set.
Despite the difficult task ahead, Keselowski was optimistic about his team’s chances going forward after Iowa.
“Watkins Glen was pretty good for us,” Keselowski said. “It’s been a good track for me, my teammate (Buescher) won there last year. [We] just keep putting solid runs on the board, and I feel like this’ll come to us. We’ve got some pretty strong Ford Mustangs right now.”
RFK was indeed strong at Iowa, but over the next month, the team’s biggest competition could come from within its own shop. In a pressure-packed situation with only a few playoff spots remaining, chances are good that someone will get left out, and that could make for some awkward feelings in the RFK shop once the playoff field is final.
Bryan began writing for Frontstretch in 2016. He has penned Up to Speed for the past eight years. A lifelong student of auto racing, Bryan is a published author and automotive historian. He is a native of Columbus, Ohio and currently resides in Southern Kentucky.