Tyler Reddick knows how 23XI Racing teammate Bubba Wallace feels being on the playoff cutline ahead of Saturday’s regular-season finale at Daytona International Speedway.
Reddick was in that spot in 2021.
“That whole hype physically takes years off your life,” Reddick said in response to a question from NBC Sports. “It’s just so stressful.
“There’s so much happening out of your control. It just seems like if things happen, the penalty is just so massive, whether getting caught up in an accident or making a mistake on pit road or whatever it is.”
Reddick had a 25-point lead on his nearest competitor entering this race in 2021. Ryan Blaney’s victory assured Reddick a playoff spot since Blaney had previously won that season. Had Wallace won instead of finishing second, Wallace would have been in and Reddick would have been out of the playoffs.
Wallace goes into Saturday’s race at Daytona (7 p.m. ET on NBC and Peacock) holding the final playoff spot. He is 32 points ahead of rookie Ty Gibbs and 43 points ahead of Daniel Suarez.
Wallace seeks his first playoff appearance and admits he would be “devastated” if he didn’t make the playoffs.
He’ll be eliminated if there is a new winner and it isn’t him. Last year’s race saw a driver win their way into the playoffs.
Austin Dillon eluded the field wrecking in the rain to go from 16th to first. He went on to win to make the playoffs for the fifth time.
Dillon, whose only chance to make the playoffs last year was to win at Daytona, said he didn’t feel pressure entering that race.
“You give it to God, put in the effort and the work and see what happens on the other side,” Dillon told NBC Sports.
“If you dwell on things that go wrong, you can’t live in that spot too long. You beat yourself up too much, you just won’t ever be able to get back up.
“I think a guy with a clear conscience, clear mind, races better than someone who’s got a lot of things on their mind.”
Dillon’s victory last year left one spot for a non-winner. Blaney entered the race ahead of Martin Truex Jr. for that position and held on to it even after his car was damaged in an incident.
“I tried to just go race and then that was even more stressful because we got in that accident early,” Blaney told NBC Sports. “Then, you’re like, ‘Oh my gosh it’s kind of out of our hands of what’s going to happen.’
“It’s definitely not fun.”
2. Proper mindset
In years past, Bubba Wallace’s only chance of making the playoffs going into the regular-season finale was to win.
If there is no new winner, he’ll make the playoffs for the first time as long as he doesn’t lose his advantage on Ty Gibbs or Daniel Suarez.
Wallace admits that to be in this scenario for the first time has him “kind of going through some new avenues and figuring out how to navigate it all.”
As he faces such challenges, he says he’s getting better with his mental mindset.
“Having a mental capacity of knowing that you’re going to have to fight for it and it’s not just going to happen has helped me tremendously in just managing races,” Wallace said.
He notes the Coca-Cola 600 and the race at Darlington this year as times he overcame challenges.
Wallace was 16th on the final restart with 20 laps to go and finished fourth in the Coca-Cola 600. At Darlington, he started second and ran in the top three the first 93 laps until a slow pit stop put him outside the top 15. He rallied late, going from 14th to fifth in the final 17 laps.
His focus Saturday night will be simple, he says.
“I have a lot of people telling me you can only control the things that you can control,” he said.
3. Much at stake at Daytona
Beyond the race for the final playoff spot, there’s still much on the line for playoff drivers in the regular-season finale.
Martin Truex Jr. is poised to win the regular-season championship. He has a 39-point lead on teammate Denny Hamlin. The regular-season champion gets 15 playoff points. Second in the standings gets 10 playoff points.
“I feel like the Toyotas, in particular Truex and Hamlin, have gained a lot of momentum lately,” said Jeff Gordon, Hendrick Motorsports vice chairman, after William Byron’s win last weekend at Watkins Glen.
Playoff points are given to positions 1-10 in the final regular season standings.
Brad Keselowski (697 points), Chris Buescher (695), Ross Chastain (695), Ryan Blaney (694), Kevin Harvick (693) and Kyle Busch (683) rank sixth to 11th in the standings heading into Saturday night’s race.
Sixth place in the regular-season standings is worth five bonus playoff points. That decreases by one all the way to 10th in the standings. With every point mattering in the playoffs, any extra playoff points a driver can earn could be significant.
4. Changes for playoffs
Goodyear will have a new tire for at least three — and possibly four — of the 10 playoff races. Goodyear will have a new tire at Bristol, a new tire at Texas, is leaning toward having a new tire at Martinsville and will have a new tire at Phoenix.
Provided there is a change for the Martinsville race, that will mean that two of the three playoff cutoff races — Bristol is the final race of the first round and Martinsville is the final race of the third round — along with the championship race will have a new tire.
It wasn’t that long ago that NASCAR preferred not to make changes during the playoffs. Now, anything is possible.
“It’s done,” Greg Stucker, Goodyear’s director of racing, told NBC Sports about the changes, “based on discussions that we’ve had with drivers in a couple of meetings, based on discussions with NASCAR. Everybody is aligned.”
Stucker said the Cup tire for the Phoenix championship weekend will have a “significant compound change” from what was run there.
That will be the same tire that was used at New Hampshire and run in the short track test at Richmond.
“I don’t think it’s a bad idea,” Denny Hamlin said of the tire change in the key playoff races. “Yes, it’s tougher on the teams because their notebook is not going to be exactly the same, but it’s going to be close enough. It really will be.
“It’s who can adapt. The best teams will show up and adapt quicker than others. If they think it’s a better tire, I applaud it. Never wait too long to make the right decision. If it truly is better, I don’t care if we test it or not, just put it on.”
Christopher Bell did the New Hampshire test that led to the tire change there and what will be used at Phoenix. He tested with Chase Elliott and Brad Keselowski.
Bell said he doesn’t think the tire change for Phoenix will be too disruptive since teams have raced with it this season.
“From my seat, it’s not a huge deal,” Bell told NBC Sports. “I think it’s good that Goodyear is making changes and trying to go in the right direction to get the tire softer so we have a little bit more feel in the car and maybe a little bit more tire fall-off.”
5. Next step
The Mazda MX-5 Cup Series had a two-day test at Martinsville Speedway this week to determine the feasibility of the IMSA-sanctioned series competing at the historic half-mile track.
Among those who got to run some laps in the open-top cars were NASCAR Hall of Famers Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Bobby Labonte.
“NASCAR is spitballing a little bit, trying some new things,” Earnhardt said on his Dale Jr. Download podcast after running a limited number of laps in the car Tuesday. “I think it would be an incredible race, having now driven the car. The cars are a blast.”
Among those who tested the cars were MX-5 Cup regulars Connor Zilisch and Gresham Wagner, along with Chad McCumbee, Andrew Carbonell, Tom Long and Clay Campbell, president of Martinsville Speedway.
“The best-case scenario in my viewpoint would be to pair it with one of our big (NASCAR Cup) weekends just to add more bang for the buck,” Campbell told NBC Sports ahead of the test of when this series could race at Martinsville.
“You got the fans already there (those weekends). The curiosity factor, I think, it’s really going to pique the interest of a lot of race fans.”