By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service
RFK Racing looks to help each other make the Playoffs
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – For so many race teams heading into Saturday night’s Coke Zero Sugar 400 (7:30 p.m. ET on NBC, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) a trophy hoist in the NASCAR Cup Series regular season finale will be the ultimate in clutch efforts – the kind of championship chance that can revitalize and redirect the season.
Fourteen of the 16 eligible 2025 Playoff positions have been determined based on race wins, leaving two more spots to be solidified in what is a typically action-packed event on the Daytona 2.5-mile high banks on the last night of the regular season.
At the drop of the green flag, 23XI Racing’s Tyler Reddick and Hendrick Motorsports’ Alex Bowman hold the two transferable points positions in the standings. But a new winner on the season would mean only one driver advances based on points. Reddick starts the race 29 points up on Bowman, who is 60-points up on the remaining drivers in the field without a win.
All three Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing teams are among those needing a Daytona trophy for a shot at the title run.
The 2012 series champion Brad Keselowski won this summer race in 2017 and teammate Chris Buescher won it in 2023. However, none of the team’s three drivers, owner-driver Keselowski (No. 6 RFK Ford), Buescher (No. 17 RFK Ford) nor Ryan Preece (No. 60 RFK Ford) have celebrated any victory this year.
In fact, it’s been nearly three months since any Ford team won a race (Team Penske’s Ryan Blaney at Nashville on June 1) and it all creates a rather dramatic Daytona dynamic for the highly-motivated RFK trio, which fully expects their teamwork to be especially key this weekend.
“When we’re around each other it’s not a competitive nature of ‘Hey, I need to beat my teammate,’” Preece said. “It is ‘hey, what I can do to help him’ just as I assume it is when he’s around me I notice that same reciprocation that whenever I need help, he helps me or if I catch him at a mile-and-a-half [track] he doesn’t make it very difficult for me to get by.
“He’ll help me as I feel like he does for Brad and I do for Brad and he does for us. It’s a relationship and a great team atmosphere to make sure at the end of the day we’re all getting the best results for our team. If we’re racing for one-two-three then we’ve got to race but if one of us is extremely fast in that moment I think we are all good with our race craft and our race knowledge and not going to hurt each other. We’re all trying to rise each other up.”
*BOWMAN ON THE BUBBLE
Of course, Hendrick Motorsports driver Alex Bowman would prefer not to have his championship potential rely so heavily on one race, the Daytona season finale. But the driver of the No. 48 Chevrolet seems at peace with his situation heading into Saturday night – confident in his team, his car and himself. He’ll start on the outside of the front row.
He smiled when asked about his week and pre-race mindset. He was busy with team commitments and joked that may have been a good thing to keep him mind off the big task ahead Saturday night.
“Headspace wise, there’s a lot that you can’t control at Daytona,” concedes Bowman, who has seven previous top-10s at Daytona with a best finish of runner-up in the 2024 Daytona 500.
“And I think for me, walking out of there Saturday night, as long as we maximized what we could and did the things that we can control correctly and didn’t mess it up on our side, whatever the result is, I’m sure we’ll have a shot at it.
“I feel like we’re plenty capable of winning a speedway race, we’re plenty capable of out-running the 45 (Reddick). If we do our job correctly, the result at that point is what it is. We’re going to do everything we can on our side to win that race. … we’ve done so much good this season I don’t want to leave there and be like this year is a total failure. If someone gets a better push and wins it on the last lap. .. we’ve still done a lot of really good things.
*MUCH TO RACE FOR
While Daytona-winning hardware is a trophy-case superstar for any driver, there remains a lot else on the line beyond a victory Saturday.
Although 14 drivers have already secured their Playoff positions and Hendrick Motorsports’ William Byron wrapped up the Regular Season Championship a week ago at Richmond (Va.) Raceway, there are still five drivers separated by only 23 points ranked second through sixth in the standings – important for the Playoff bonus points awarded by ranking.
Byron’s Hendrick teammate Chase Elliott is second in the standings, with only a five-point advantage on third place, Joe Gibbs Racing’s Denny Hamlin. Hendrick’s Kyle Larson is fourth, 12 points behind his teammate Elliott.
Team Penske’s Ryan Blaney is 15 points off Elliott and Joe Gibbs Racing’s Christopher Bell is 23 points back.
“The only other main priority is Ryan’s (Blaney) got a great chance to get to second in points, which is obviously a ton of playoff points, whereas Joey [Logano] and I don’t’ really have that opportunity,” the 2022 Daytona 500 winner Austin Cindric said of Team Penske’s overall gameplan.
“I’m not saying the priority will be Ryan, but if we can get Ryan points – points don’t really matter for me regular season-wise, so I think that’s really the only thing that fall in the category of what else is out there. If we can get one of us a win, even having another Ford in the Playoffs is a big deal, so we’ll do our best to try and contribute to that cause.”
Bell conceded his No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing team is also very conscious of the points-situation and potential of moving up in the standings to collect more bonus points. Of the five drivers vying to move up in points position – only the three-time Daytona 500 champion Hamlin and 2021 summer winner Blaney have previous Daytona victories at NASCAR Cup Series race at Daytona.
“It definitely is [on my mind] and we need to finish up as high as we can in the points, but you just never know how these races are going to play out,” said Bell, a three-time race winner.
“We could go tomorrow and score a bunch of points and the rest of guys could score a bunch of points and it doesn’t matter. So, we’ll roll the dice and see where we end up.”
*LAST CHANCE MINDSET
Without exception each driver in the NASCAR Cup Series insists that his chances of victory depend a lot not just on the equipment or team but on his own mindset.
As the regular season finale and one last shot to be among the group of 16 Championship-eligible Saturday night’s 400-miler presents a huge challenge. A victory is the only thing that absolutely assures one of those drivers without a win already that chance to advance to the Playoffs.
It’s hard to imagine that the intensity of the high-speed pack racing, at Daytona could be any more intense, but most drivers say they fully expect it will with so much on the line. For so many a victory is the only option.
“I think it makes it very clear of what you have to do and how you’re going to do it, right?” said McDowell, driver of the No. 71 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet and the 2021 Daytona 500. “There are times where you go — oh that’s a low percentage move. Well, it doesn’t matter… low percentage is all you got right now, right? And so I think it changes that mindset of the risk versus reward.
“But I think I’ve said it and been talking about it for a while now and it’s kind of played its way out – we treat, I treat, my crew chief treats every race like it’s ‘do or die’ and you have to win because pointing your way in is so tough, as we see.
“You look at guys like Chris Buescher, again, who’s had a great season; scored a lot of points and potentially won’t make it unless he wins. So, we treated Richmond like that. We treated Watkins Glen like that. We treated all of them like that. So, you give up a lot of points in the process of doing it like that, but that’s the mindset that you have to have to potentially get a win and change your season.
“I think last week was awesome evidence of that, right? Like you could have a tough season, a rough season, but you’re only one week away from that changing. We’re out of weeks now as we head into Daytona. This is the last week that that can change. But I do feel like that mindset for a lot of the teams is what you have to have for the Playoffs, even the best teams.”
