RELATED: Playoff standings
JOLIET, Ill. — Brendan Gaughan isn’t really worried what NASCAR XFINITY Series 2017 Regular Season Champion Elliott Sadler does in Saturday’s TheHouse.com 300 (3:30 p.m. ET, NBCSN) at Chicagoland Speedway. Nor will he pay much attention to how playoff points leader William Byron fares.
With this race being the final event of the regular season before the playoffs begin, the No. 62 Richard Childress Racing driver’s precarious 12th-place position in the playoff standings has him looking at two very specific people.
“Right now, I have to worry about these two gentlemen right here,” Gaughan said during his media availability on Friday at Chicago, seated next to 11th-place Michael Annett and 13th-place Dakota Armstrong. “So, what we have to do is stay focused on where we need to be. If Dakota is going for stage points, it forces us to go for stage points. If he stays out to go for the win, it forces us to kind of stay on his cycle. So, we’re looking at a different strategy for the race than looking what the leader does, looking at what everyone else does.
“I have to pay attention to these two guys right here and base my strategy off them off of trying to gain whatever points I can to give me a bigger lead, a bigger cushion in case something random does happen.”
This weekend’s event will finalize the 12-car playoff field in the XFINITY Series. Gaughan and Annett are on the positive side of the bubble as of now and are separated by one point. On the other side, Armstrong sits 13th and 25 points behind 12th-place Gaughan.
That will be some work to make up this weekend, the driver of the No. 28 JGL Racing Toyota said.
“We’re in a spot where we’re going to have to ha ve a little bit of help,” Armstrong said. “Twenty-five points is a pretty big margin. Especially (because) our mile-and-a-half program has been better this year, but it’s not been where it still needs to be. So, we’re putting all our eggs in the basket trying to get as much as we can … we’re going to try all we can this week but that’s really our only hope is to get as much stage points as we can and have a little bit of help in trying to get a top five.
“The win obviously is what it’s probably going to take, but it’s a pretty big jump for us. So we’ve just got to go out there — we’re not giving up — but we have to go out there and really perform this weekend.”
For Annett, performance has been a bit of a letdown this year, his first full-time season back in the XFINITY Series since 2013. He sees his JR Motorsports teammates Elliott Sadler, William Byron and Justin Allgaier all winning races and securing their spots in the playoffs and he is still searching for his first ’17 victory in the No. 5 Chevrolet.
“I feel like we should be a lot better, feel like we shouldn’t be talking about the playoff bubble in securing our spot this weekend,” Annett said. “It’s been subpar, we’ve shown flashes, then we’ve been consistently just a couple spots out of what I think we should be, especially looking at our teammates’ performance … Even though our finishes are decent — still not where we want — we’ve just struggled in qualifying and struggled in those two first segments seems like week in and week out.
“So, if we get ourselves in the (playoffs), that’s something that we’re going to have to focus on and get as many (points) as we can.”
Should Annett secure a spot in the playoffs, he has another must-achieve goal in mind for the rest of the season.
“We need to go get a win,” Annett said. “I’m not going to be happy with our season if we finish out the year and don’t have a win yet. I definitely think it would be a disappointment without that.”