Playoff berths at stake in regular-season finale at Darlington

 

[August 31, 2024]  And then there was one.

Race, that is.

The NASCAR Cup Series' 26-race regular season wraps up at Darlington Raceway with Sunday night's Cook Out Southern 500, the crowning jewel event's first appearance on the cutoff line before the 10-race title chase begins next Sunday at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

Thirteen of the 14 winners have qualified for the postseason run that ends at Phoenix Raceway on Nov. 10, with Austin Dillon's Richmond rowdiness rendering him ineligible by NASCAR for a title run.

Three others -- Martin Truex Jr., Ty Gibbs and Chris Buescher -- grid high enough in the standings to make the 16-driver championship field, but a first-time winner behind them Sunday would knock out one of them.

The 31-year-old Buescher ripped it up last season in his No. 17 RFK Racing Ford with three wins in five races, an incredibly torrid run in late July and all of August.

Ironically, Darlington's 400-miler this season, a wild May 12 affair with leader Buescher getting taken out by the No. 45 of pole winner Tyler Reddick with nine laps left, allowed RFK team owner Brad Keselowski to break a 110-race winless streak and hand Ford its first win in 13 starts.

At Kansas Speedway a week earlier, Buescher lost to winner Kyle Larson by 0.001 seconds in officially the closest finish in the sport's history.

That combination leaves Buescher in a dicey situation: If he doesn't have a winning car, he has to run well, maintain his 21-point lead and hope a first-time winner doesn't find Victory Lane -- someone like two-time Southern 500 winner Erik Jones or anyone else capable of victory who hasn't done so through 25 races.

Bubba Wallace is in that category.

Wallace trails the Prosper, Texas, native by those 21 points and has had a fast No. 23 Toyota this summer, posting top-10 finishes in four of the past five races.

The 23XI Racing driver said he doesn't feel any more stress than usual but would just like to win again.

"I think from a bigger picture, I'm stressed about being winless in damn near two seasons," Wallace said. "Let's say this was Daytona last year or (the) Bristol (elimination) race. I have no stress compared to those last year, and I think that's for the better."

Running strong in the race's final third section would be helpful, he added.

"Obviously, you get down to crunch time and say we have a great first, second stage, and things start to get tighter, you have to keep the emotions in check," said Wallace, Reddick's teammate at the stable owned by Michael Jordan and Denny Hamlin. "And so I think I've learned that over the last couple years is the races aren't over until the checkered flag falls ... you've got to keep pushing."

Joe Gibbs Racing driver Christopher Bell called Darlington "the most unique track on the schedule, just from the way that you drive the track, how narrow it is, how the risk vs. reward is."

But for drivers like Buescher, Wallace and probably almost 10 others, there is little risk and only reward at a track that must be tamed for a title shot.

--Field Level Media

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