When the checkered flag waved at Bristol Motor Speedway on Sept. 12, I imagine there had to have been at least one person with their jaw on the floor.
It was like seeing the 2007 undefeated New England Patriots fall in the Super Bowl to the New York Giants. Like John Wooden’s UCLA Bruins men’s basketball team finally being taken down by Notre Dame in 1974. Like the Miracle on Ice. Many saw it and probably couldn’t believe it. I imagine the Army and the Navy were both called. Someone reenacted the scene in the mayor’s office from Ghostbusters.
Connor Zilisch and JR Motorsports lost a NASCAR Xfinity Series race. Zilisch’s fifth-place run at Bristol ended a four-race winning streak and was just the second race in the last 10 that JRM hasn’t been in victory lane. Zilisch was devastated.
For about 10 seconds.
He had one of the best cars of the day, and it showed in the points. He matched winner Aric Almirola with a race-high 52 points thanks to a stage two win. His buffer to the cut line with two races remaining in the first round is a whopping 85 points.
“When you’re upset with fifth place, you’re doing something right,” Zilisch said. “We’ll keep building on it and get better in Kansas. But I know that we are heading in the right direction as a team and things are looking upward. And we’re leading lots of laps and putting ourselves in position.”
His teammates, however, did lose out on opportunities to advance or better their odds of doing so. Justin Allgaier won stage one, but a bad adjustment and missing the boat on late pit strategy left him in sixth. Carson Kvapil finished fourth, a solid run but “definitely not what we wanted,” after finishing second in the spring to Kyle Larson. Sammy Smith had a mechanical failure and sunk to the bottom of the playoff standings, 24 points below the cut line, with a 37th-place finish.
But it wasn’t JR Motorsports’ performance alone that drew my interest. While the dominators of the series — JR Motorsports and Chevy — had an off night by their standards, the playoff drivers who’ve been quiet most of the summer woke up at the right time.
I mentioned a few weeks ago how Sam Mayer could be a sleeper to take the regular season title away from Zilisch and Allgaier after the No. 88 driver hurt his collarbone. While that didn’t materialize, Mayer finished third at Bristol for his fifth top-five finish in seven races. Outside of Zilisch, Mayer has an argument for the best performance of the summer.
Mayer being near the front isn’t much of a shocker. His Haas Factory Team teammate Sheldon Creed finishing runner-up — again — was. The man who contended nearly every week with Joe Gibbs Racing somehow has just six top fives this season. But looking at the lineup for the playoffs, he might be in line for more.
Creed’s never finished worse than 11th at Kansas Speedway, has just one finish worse than 12th on road courses, has an average finish of 3.3 for the fall race at Martinsville Speedway and has an average finish of 6.3 over the last four season finales at Phoenix Raceway. To use a baseball analogy, Creed and fellow Ford driver Harrison Burton squeaked into the playoffs on points by just getting on base and taking what’s given to them. That mentality got them in and may even get them through this round, but they probably need to go for a home run if they want to be part of the Championship 4 in Phoenix.
Then there’s the group that needed Bristol the most. Almirola gave Joe Gibbs Racing its first win since — wait for it — April 5 when Brandon Jones won at Darlington Raceway. Since the win, Jones has cooled off with just two top fives since. William Sawalich was the most underperforming driver in the field until recently. Taylor Gray has been the team’s strongest link, but he went into the playoffs with four straight finishes worse than 14th.
At Bristol, Gray was on path to break out of his slump with a strong run … until a spin in the final 30 laps relegated him to 14th. On the whole, JGR was solid despite Almirola being the only one to finish in the top 10. While the team hasn’t shown the same consistency as other playoff drivers, JGR has shown they can pop off on a given week and wind up in victory lane.
The current playoff structure has been debated to death, this year and in years past. But this is the game teams have to play. Zilisch’s monstrous summer performance will not matter come Phoenix. Neither will some of his contemporaries’ stumble over that same span.
Just like any other sport, the goal for NASCAR teams should be to peak as the pressure mounts. Through one race in the playoffs, there’s a few who appear to be on the path to doing just that.
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.