DARLINGTON, S.C. – The Cup Series Chase presented by Mobil 1 opens Sunday at Darlington Raceway (5 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), and RFK Racing has reached what many observers predicted at the start of the season: the Ford team has two drivers in the postseason lineup.
Chris Buescher starts the final 10 races 10th in points, and Ryan Preece will take the Cook Out Southern 500 green flag in 16th, thanks to his dramatic last-race, last-gasp victory in the regular season finale last weekend at Daytona International Speedway.
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The lone RFK driver missing from the post-season fun is team co-owner Brad Keselowski, who flirted with the Chase cutline much of the year but wound up 18th. A former Southern 500 winner, Keselowski will race for Sunday’s win in one of the series’ landmark races, while keeping an eye on the progress of his drivers racing with a hope of a Cup title.
Keselowski’s evaluation of the RFK season to date places his team in what he calls Tier 2, a level below the so-called superteams of Hendrick Motorsports, Team Penske and Joe Gibbs Racing.
“If you look at the Cup Series with three tiers of competitors – arguably four, everyone wants to be at the top of Tier 1,” Keselowski said Saturday. “We’re no exception, so we’re not happy to be at the top of Tier 2, but I think an honest assessment is that’s where we’re at.
“We’re perennially a threat to put one or two cars in The [Chase] and potentially a threat to win anywhere from one to three races (one points-paying win this season) a year. That’s what Tier 2 teams are, but we want to be Tier 1.”
Penske, Hendrick and Gibbs put all of their eligible drivers in the post-season lineup, with Hendrick’s Alex Bowman, who missed several races due to a vertigo bout, the only absentee.
“They put all their cars in The Chase, and they have the ability or opportunity to win probably somewhere between three to 10 races a year,” Keselowski said. “So that’s where I want us to be as an organization.”
What’s needed to push RFK to that level? That’s a quick answer from Keselowski, 36 times a Cup winner and the series’ 2012 champion with Team Penske.
“Speed,” he said. “We just need to be faster. We need to have a richer revenue model that allows us to invest in the engineering decision to do this at a higher level.”
Keselowski said he has confidence in his drivers’ chances despite the fact that they start The Chase in the second half of the standings. He said Preece underlined his ability with last week’s Daytona win.
“I think getting that kind of first point win is a check mark and great for him,” Keselowski said. “It’s great for the team, the organization as a whole. If anything, I think it puts them in a less stressful position, not a more stressful position, to just go out and run his own races. The points will be what they’ll be. He doesn’t need to throw Hail Marys to prove his worth in this sport.”