Big Machine Racing and Nick Sanchez should not be overlooked entering the 2025 NASCAR Xfinity Series Playoffs, despite this being known as the year of dominance by one team, JR Motorsports.
Sanchez enters Friday’s playoff opener at Bristol Motor Speedway (7:30 p.m. ET, The CW, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) as the No. 7 seed, a single point above the cutline. The No. 48 Chevrolet driver punched his postseason ticket in late June when he visited Victory Lane for the first time in his Xfinity Series career at EchoPark Speedway (formerly Atlanta Motor Speedway).
Although the Big Machine operation has not found the same level of success as JRM with top seed Connor Zilisch’s remarkable year of nine wins at the forefront, Sanchez acknowledged the No. 88 team’s excellence but also feels his single-car team could be next in line after the JRM drivers.
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“What Connor is doing is insane, and rightfully so, he deserves the praise he’s getting,” Sanchez said during Tuesday’s Xfinity Series Playoffs Media Day. “But I feel like there’s a world where we could be the third fastest race car in the playoffs behind the 7 (Justin Allgaier) and the 88 (Zilisch). Like at Stage 1 after Gateway, I know it’s just one race. That’s where we were. And I feel like we’ve qualified very well. We’ve had raw pace, and that’s something that’s very hard to get.”
In the last seven races, Sanchez has started on the front row three times at Dover, Indianapolis and last Saturday night at Gateway. However, 37th-, 33rd- and 25th-place finishes in those races cannot happen in the postseason if the No. 48 team hopes to advance.
While the speed is clearly evident in qualifying, a possible deep playoff run may ultimately come down to the execution of the race. Sanchez believes Big Machine is showing more raw pace compared to technical alliance teammates, Richard Childress Racing drivers Austin Hill and Jesse Love, but knows his team must maximize its potential each week and control what it can control.
“I think it’s just having good, tough, sometimes tough and hard conversations with the team and identifying where we could be better, right?” Sanchez said. “Because like I said, the pace is there, but qualifying and just merely being fast is one thing, but executing throughout the whole race is another. And there’s areas where I could improve. There’s areas where the team can improve. I think we’re having those conversations now and trying to rectify those problems for the playoffs. And I think we definitely can.”
With Sanchez’s team debriefing the weaknesses that need some work before Friday night’s playoff opener in Thunder Valley, some areas of strength play right into the No. 48’s hands, such as road courses. The Round of 12 cutoff race is the Charlotte Roval, and Big Machine almost advanced to the next round of the playoffs last year with its then-driver Parker Kligerman.
Only mere moments before Kligerman took the white flag while leading the race, the caution came out. It forced NASCAR Overtime, where Sam Mayer out-dueled Kligerman and eliminated Big Machine from the postseason.
Sanchez has been on a roll on road courses, riding a three-race streak of top fives at Chicago, Sonoma and Portland. Despite the good runs turning left and right recently, the 24-year-old Miami native does not necessarily think he will be in a must-win situation. If the team can fully execute for the next three Round of 12 playoff races, the rest will take care of itself and maybe set the stage for a deep playoff run.
“Outside of the top two in points, everyone has one win,” Sanchez said. “I know Austin has three, but he lost all his points. So in that regard, we’re not really overcoming a huge deficit in the playoff reset. You know, I’m plus one, I think, seventh seed, and I’m 10 points out of third seed. So everyone’s really close, right? You could change, you could swing it in the stage. So in that regard, I don’t feel like there’s many must-wins ahead of me.”
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If Sanchez reaches the Round of 8, Talladega stands out as a prime chance to punch his ticket to the Championship 4, thanks to his earlier win this season on a drafting track in Georgia. The Round of 8 cutoff race is Martinsville, the site of Sanchez’s seventh-place finish in 2022 when he was running a part-time schedule with Big Machine.
With the wild ending to the Martinsville spring race in late March, the potential for chaos in the fall edition might be a case of “survive and advance” for Sanchez, assuming he lives up to his lofty postseason expectations for Big Machine to meet the big moment.
“I need to be top three or top five in every stage of the playoffs and finish there,” Sanchez said. “If I do that, I think it’s good enough to get to Phoenix. Obviously, the win and you’re in changes things a little differently, but I feel like everyone’s really close in points. So you just really got to beat your competitors. And I know the 88 (Zilisch) and the 7 (Allgaier) are in a different points situation than everyone else. So I think the rest of the spots are pretty wide open.”