It’s all about playoff qualifying tonight at Daytona. 16 drivers make the field, and for those of you new to this, there’s two ways to qualify:
Win a Race (and stay in the top 30 in points standings)
Ten drivers have qualified this way:
Kevin Harvick
Denny Hamlin
Brad Keselowski
Chase Elliott
Joey Logano
Martin Truex, Jr
Ryan Blaney
Alex Bowman
Austin Dillon
Cole Custer
For the first eight of those, winning a race wasn’t essential—they also qualified by points. But for Dillon and Custer, the win made the difference. And speaking of qualifying by points…
Qualify by Points
To fill out the field, the top winless drivers in the standings also get in it, and so far, three are locked in:
Aric Almirola
Kyle Busch
Kurt Busch
With one more so far ahead of the cut line that it’d take a very shocking turn of events for him to not qualify:
Clint Bowyer
***
So, this leaves two spots available to be filled either by tonight’s winner and the top remaining driver in the standings, or—more likely—the top two remaining drivers in the standings.
Matt DiBenedetto has the inside track, sitting nine points above Jimmie Johnson, who’s currently the first driver out. William Byron’s next, four points ahead of Johnson as the last driver currently in the field. Erik Jones is 50 points behind Byron, so winning is the most plausible route for him.
For Byron and Johnson, as teammates, the goal is to both finish ahead of DiBenedetto. For DiBenedetto, of course, the goal is just to hold position (or win). For Tyler Reddick, Christopher Bell, Chris Buescher, Bubba Wallace, Ricky Stenhouse Jr, Michael McDowell, Ryan Newman, John Hunter Nemechek, Ty Dillon, Matt Kenseth, Corey LaJoie, Ryan Preece, and Daniel Suarez (if he can pass Preece in the standings), a win’s the only way, and for the remaining drivers on the track, there is no way in.
Vroom Vroom.
