August 28, 2021 | By Lee Spencer

Teamwork goes out the window for Richard Childress Racing at Daytona

Win and you’re in. 

NASCAR’s current points system puts the emphasis on winning. A driver who wins in the regular season almost always earns a berth in the Playoffs. Since the sanctioning body changed the Playoff system in 2014, the driver who wins the season finale has been crowned champion.

Up to now, Cup drivers have had 25 opportunities this year to advance to the postseason. Fifteen competitors are locked in. Fifteen additional drivers are still eligible to clinch the final spot in the 2021 Playoff grid. Tyler Reddick currently sits on the bubble as the driver who occupies the 16th Playoff-eligible position on points.

The Coke Zero Sugar 400 provides one last shot for a driver to join the elite 16 racers who will battle over the final 10 races to determine the title. 

Since NASCAR introduced a playoff system in 2004, two drivers have won Race 26 to qualify. Jeremy Mayfield erased a 55-point deficit with his 2004 win at Richmond. In the eight years under the current version, William Byron has been the only driver to use the last regular-season race as a launching pad to the Playoffs, a feat he accomplished last year.
The feat was memorable in more ways than one, as it marked Byron’s breakthrough Cup win. This season, Byron didn’t waste any time locking himself into the postseason. The No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports team won at Homestead-Miami Speedway—the third race of 2021. 

This Saturday night, the 23-year-old Charlottean, who is ranked fourth in the Cup standings, won’t have the weight of being winless entering the cutoff race at Daytona International Speedway.

“The pressure throughout this week is a lot easier,” Byron said. “I’m definitely not as tensed-up or thinking about the moment and what I’m going to do to execute a good race. I’m just kind of going in there just to have fun. Obviously, you try to have fun every week but, it’s a lot more stressful each week. This week is kind of easier on me. 

“I feel like the speedway races, we’ve been good on. I feel like my plate racing IQ has gone up. But for me, there’s not a lot of pressure involved. I don’t envy the position of the other guys that are in that position... either they have to win or they’re right there on the bubble for the points. It’s a tough position to be in.”

The driver dreading Daytona the most could be Reddick. Very similar to Byron last year, the 24-year-old racer is searching for his first Cup win—and a position in the Playoffs. But Cup competition at Daytona has never been kind to the driver of the No. 8 Chevrolet. Despite victories in the Xfinity Series and trucks, in four Cup races at the 2.5-mile track, Reddick crashed out of the first three and finished 27th in this year’s Daytona 500. His average finish is 27.8—just slightly better than Daniel Suarez (31.6) and Anthony Alfredo (32.0). 

If none of the other 14 eligible drivers win, Reddick can clinch the 16th Playoff spot by scoring 31 points Saturday night. He currently has a 25-point advantage over Richard Childress Racing teammate Austin Dillon, who suffered a blow at Michigan International Speedway last Sunday when Brad Keselowski wrecked him coming to the end of Stage 2. 

Dillon suddenly became a sentimental favorite entering Daytona following the senseless altercation with Keselowski at Michigan. On speedway prowess alone, it would be silly to count him out. Dillon is one of four drivers on the outside looking in who has won at Daytona. In addition to winning the 2018 Daytona 500, Dillon has three top fives and eight top 10s in 16 starts. His average finish of 14.8 is the best among the 15 drivers in contention for the final Playoff berth.
Come Saturday, Dillon is a lot more likely to find a dancing partner than Reddick, who finds himself in a precarious position. 

“It’s a difficult thing, right,” Reddick said. “We’ve worked together so much throughout this entire year to make our cars better at a lot of these racetracks; setup-wise, working on our driving techniques. There’s a lot of things we’ve been working on. But when we go into Daytona, unfortunately, I can’t really help Austin and he can’t really help me without hurting the other’s chances of making the Playoffs. That’s just the unfortunate situation that we are presented with.

“We’re going to be pretty similar on the build in our race cars. Our cars, I would imagine, will work pretty good together. But, yeah, it’s a difficult thing. As much as we would love to work together, be up front and control the race; it’s just not really an option for us. I can’t push him to the win and still make the Playoffs. And he can’t push me to the win and still make the Playoffs. It’s just an unfortunate spot for us to be in right now. It’s just a tough spot to be in for the whole RCR organization at the moment.”

Perhaps the most fortunate of the outsiders would be Ricky Stenhouse Jr. The driver of the No. 47 Chevy has yet to win since joining JTG Daugherty Racing but has two victories at superspeedways. Stenhouse’s take-no-prisoners attitude suits him well—particularly in an elimination-type situation such as Daytona. But the driver believes the action will be “pretty calm up until 10 laps to go.”

“I would say the No. 11 (Denny Hamlin) the No. 5 (Kyle Larson), the No. 3 (Dillon) and the No. 8 (Reddick) are probably the cars that need stage points; trying to win the regular-season championship or between the No. 8 and the No. 3 trying to make it in on points,” Stenhouse said. “So, I feel like there are a lot of us that are going to stay pretty calm and try and make it to the end and obviously then, things get crazy at the end.”