NASCAR Cup Drivers Face Crucial Race On Indianapolis Oval As Playoffs Loom
Story By: REID SPENCER / NASCAR – INDIANPOLIS, IN – Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at on the 2.5-mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval will bring two significant conclusions—the championship round of the $1-million-to-win In-Season Challenge and the end of TNT’s five-race run as a broadcast partner for this season.
Ty Dillon’s matchup against Ty Dillon in the finals of the In-Season Challenge will receive considerable, well-deserved attention in Sunday’s Brickyard 400 presented by PPG (2 p.m. ET on TNT, IMS Radio and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
The novel tournament, introduced this year, won’t be the only focus, not with the 26-race Cup Series regular season nearing conclusion and Playoff spots still very much in play.
By finishing ahead of Gibbs in Sunday’s race, Dillon could complete an improbable run as 32nd seed in the 32-driver Challenge field.
“I feel like we’ve already won this thing, no matter what happens on Sunday,” said Dillon, who picked up his only career NASCAR Xfinity Series victory at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 2014.
“I know this is an awesome moment in time for myself, my family and Kaulig Racing, but in a few weeks, life’s going to move on, and hopefully we continue to get better and we win races and continue to stay in the spotlight.”
Certain to stay in the spotlight over the next few weeks are the drivers on either side of the elimination line for the Cup Series Playoffs. Currently, after a seventh-place finish last Sunday at Dover Motor Speedway, Bubba Wallace holds the 16th and final Playoff-eligible position by 16 points over Ryan Preece.
Twelve drivers—Denny Hamlin, Christopher Bell, Kyle Larson, Shane van Gisbergen, William Byron, Ryan Blaney, Austin Cindric, Chase Elliott, Joey Logano, Chase Briscoe, Ross Chastain and Josh Berry—already have scored wins this season and are presumed safe for Playoff berths.
With a 156-point margin above the elimination line and just five races left in the regular season, Tyler Reddick likewise is all but certain to qualify for the Playoffs. Alex Bowman helped himself with a third-place run at Dover and is 14th on the potential Playoff grid, 63 points to the good.
Despite a career-average finish of 33.0 on the Indy oval, Bowman is cautiously optimistic about his chances on Sunday.
“We’ve had a good stretch lately, and Dover was another step in the right direction for our (No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports) team,” Bowman said. “Indy hasn’t been our strongest track, but with the way we’ve been running, I feel like we’re in a position to keep building on this momentum and have a solid weekend at The Brickyard.”
At the top of the standings, the race for the Regular Season Championship—not to mention the bonus of 15 Playoff points—has tightened considerably over the past few weeks.
With a sixth-place run at Dover, Chase Elliott knocked Hendrick Motorsports teammate William Byron out of the top spot in the standings, a position Byron had held for 17 of the first 20 weeks in the season.
Elliott now leads Byron by 16 points, third-place Kyle Larson by 38 and Dover winner Denny Hamlin by 39.
Byron’s race at Dover ended 14 laps short of its double-overtime finish after Bell spun while battling for the lead and ignited a wreck that sidelined Byron’s No. 24 Chevrolet.
“Last weekend (was) a tough one,” said Byron, who has posted just one finish better than 27th in his last five races (eighth at Sonoma). “We ran basically in the top five all day just to get involved in someone else’s mess at the end.
“It sucks, but we have to move on and focus on Indy now. We obviously have the speed, just need the finishes at this point. I think we’ve shown how strong we are with having no practice in Dover and running up front all day. We have a long practice this weekend since we’re back on the oval, which will be nice to really get the car dialed in.”
