Win & In: RFK’s Playoff Hopes Hinge On Daytona

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – With only one race left to make the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs, all the drivers who are not locked in are feeling the pressure.

Currently, Tyler Reddick sits 15th in the playoff standings, 89 points above the cutoff and 29 points above Alex Bowman, who sits in the 16th and final playoff spot and has a 60-point buffer over the cutline.

Chris Buescher is 17th, 60 points below the cutoff and with no mathematical way to point his way into the playoffs once the green flag waves.

The scenarios are simple. For Reddick and Bowman, as long as a driver is already locked into the playoffs, a part-time driver, or one of them wins the race, they will make the postseason.

For every full-time driver below the cutline, they must win the race.

In 2019, the summer race at Daytona (Fla.) Int’l Speedway was moved to be the regular season finale, where it has stayed, except for 2024, in which it was the penultimate race before the playoffs.

Only twice since the move has the winner entered the race below the cutline: Austin Dillon in 2022 and Harrison Burton last year.

With the unpredictability of Daytona, every driver enters the Coke Zero Sugar 400 with a chance to win. Of the drivers below the cutline, Buescher, Kyle Busch, Brad Keselowski, Michael McDowell, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., and Justin Haley have Cup Series victories at the track.

To say the drivers are on edge is an understatement. Two drivers in a difficult, and awkward, position are RFK Racing teammates Buescher and Ryan Preece.

With their teammate and co-owner Keselowski also sitting outside the cutline, the only way for an RFK car to make the playoffs is for one of them to win. The problem is that race car drivers are selfish, and all of them want to be the one that wins their way into the playoffs.

“We know how plate racing has been for RFK and how competitive we’ve been at these things,” Buescher said. “Ultimately, there’s only ever one winner, so every time you come into a speedway race and you work with your teammates, you always have the mindset of push each other and get each other as far forward as possible until there are no cars left to pass, and then you work it out amongst yourselves. I still say that there’s no doubt in my mind that you come off of turn four and if you’ve been helping each other all day, then all bets are off at that point.

“But, you know what? It’ll be a race, and I think the normal kind of mindset is you’re going to race each other hard, but be respectful about it. Ultimately, you hope that we have three of our Mustangs with the ability to have a shot to win the race at the end, and we’ll just duke it out all the way to the line.”

Preece shares those same sentiments with Buescher.

“To be honest with you, Chris has always been somebody that I’ve found myself trying to work with, whether I was teammates with him or not,” Preece said. “Brad has always been racing for the win [at superspeedways]. So the way I look at this race is our jobs are to get up in the first few rows and work with each other to get there, but if Brad and Chris are in the first two rows, it’s my job to find myself there to work with them and put RFK or one of us in position coming to the line to win.

“Whether that be Chris out front or Brad or myself – you want to be selfish as a driver – but understanding the main goal for the company and the employees and everybody there … it’s very important that one of these cars gets into the playoffs because our speed, we’ve shown it throughout this year.

“Chris has had multiple times where things didn’t come together, myself included as well as Brad, so I think if one of our cars can get into the playoffs, it’s going to be a serious threat.”

Austin Cindric, who is already locked into the playoffs with a win at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway from earlier this year, said that he wants to see a fellow Ford driver win and make the playoffs.

“Yeah, I think it’s a good move from an OEM standpoint,” Preece said regarding Cindric’s comments. “All of us racing for Ford, the main goal is for Ford to compete for a championship, and the more Fords that are in it, that gives us more opportunity.

“I feel like all of us, not only within RFK, but [Team] Penske and Front Row [Motorsports], and Rick Ware [Racing] … we work well together and we try to make sure that at the end of these races that the Blue Oval is the one going to Victory Lane.

“If we have the opportunity to have the support from Penske, who are locked in already, it would be a great opportunity for one of our cars to get locked in as well.”

Buesher also wants to see some manufacturer help from his fellow Ford teammates.

“I think that’s fair, Buescher said. “You’ve seen OEM’s sticking together a lot as we’ve gone speedway racing. It’s become a big part of how we approach these and who you work with because you need friends when you come down, you go through your pit cycles, you need the numbers to make speed, and we have better tools now to have more communication across different organizations as well, so it just helps it play into everyone’s hands where the OEM’s or you’re able to bump up your numbers.

“Teams that have five cars kind of have their own group already, but for teams that have one, two, three cars, you need to have some sort of an alliance and that’s helped us be able to stack numbers through the years,” he added. “It’s something that we’ve already practiced quite a bit, but certainly knowing that there’s a handful within our group that are locked in, we’ll take all the assistance we can get.

“We don’t want anything given to us, but we’ll take all we can for a little push or shove here or there.”

Something that has been discussed within the team is the scenario of two or all three of the RFK cars racing for the win on the final lap. While they won’t make drastic moves that would endanger them, they will race hard for the win.

“All bets are off might be a little stretch, but is it ‘Thou shall not wreck their teammate?’ Until at least they can go across the line backwards and finish second,” Buescher joked.

“There’s a timing etiquette in there that’s important, but, again, we have worked really well together through the years and even like Ryan was talking about before we were teammates. We’ve been around each other. We’ve been able to find ourselves towards the front of these races and it’s hard to win them. So much happens in those closing laps, but you’ve got to make the best decisions you can in the moment and it’s not really feasible to say you’re three cars acting as one the entire time.

“You do your best, but a lot of times there’s just not the opportunity to keep three cars in a line pushing and making best speed at all given points. There have been conversations and there is a mindset. You certainly don’t want to be wiping each other out.”

Preece has the same mindset as Buescher. Even though he wants to be the one that takes RFK to the playoffs, what matters is that one of them wins, regardless of who is driving.

“For me and Chris and Brad, we’ve talked about it,” Preece said.  “The end goal is that one of us ends up in the playoffs, so it’s really hard to sit here and tell you what we’re all gonna do because we don’t know how that last lap is going to play out [or] what order we’re gonna be in.

“I think we’re all pretty selfish as race car drivers. That’s what we want to be and do, but in the back of our minds at the same time we know how important it is for the company to make sure that one of us gets in the playoffs, so whoever that is, that has the best opportunity at that point in time, we’re going to do the best we can to make sure that it happens.

“If you’re going to try to win this race, I guarantee you’re going to have to go through an RFK car to win. I feel like we’re in a strong position to get one of our cars in, and good luck to the other ones that are going to have to get through us.”

The Coke Zero 400 is on Saturday, August 23 at 7 p.m. ET. The race will be live on NBC, the Motor Racing Network, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, channel 90.