Saturday marks the last 2022 regular season face for NASCAR. The drivers are in Daytona, Florida, for the Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona International Speedway, and it’s do-or-die for more than a handful of NASCAR stars when it comes to clinching a spot in the playoffs. The race will start at 7 p.m. ET on NBC, Peacock and NBC Sports.
14 drivers have clinched a spot in the 16-driver playoff as they won a Cup Series race this year. It makes the cutoff line for the playoffs interesting as Ryan Blaney and Martin Truex Jr. are in the top 16 when it comes to points, but neither has won a race this year. Both caught a break when Kurt Busch announced he would not compete in the playoffs as he’s dealing with injuries sustained in a crash at Pocono. Busch was the 15th driver to win a race this year.
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Blaney can clinch a playoff spot if he wins at Daytona or gains 31 points to stay either ahead or tied with Truex in points regardless of whether a driver who has yet to win a race this season takes first place on Saturday, according to CBS Sports. Blaney can clinch a spot during the race if he scores 11 more stage points than Truex and is 36 points ahead of Truex at the end of Stage 2.
Truex will clinch a spot in the playoffs as long as there are no new winners. He will also be one step closer to a Cup Series title if he wins on Saturday or surpasses Blaney in points if there is a new winner. If Blaney and Truex are tied in points and there is a new winner, Truex must finish second at Daytona to win the tiebreaker.
“Daytona is interesting. It hasn’t been one of my better tracks, but I really enjoy going there,” Truex said this week. “In the Daytona 500 this year, we had a really strong car and led laps, won the first two stages and were feeling good about things. Then, we had an issue on pit road and had to go to the back and we were swept up in a crash.
“To me, the strategy at Daytona is to just try to stay up front as much as possible or as close to the front as you can and hope that when the big crash happens, it’s behind you. That’s really the strategy; the only strategy is to try to stay up front. For us, as much of a wild card race as this is, I think we’ll have a good shot at winning, and it’d be a great time to get our first superspeedway win with everything on the line.”
