DOVER, Del. – Jamie McMurray has been in this position before. The veteran driver of the No. 1 Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet has come into the cutoff race that sets the Round of 12 at Dover International Speedway on both sides of the cut line in the past two years. And in both instances, he has not advanced out of the Round of 16.
This year, though, there is a new variable at play: Stage points. With the race split up into three stages, (Stage 1 ends at Lap 120, Stage 2 ends at Lap 240 and the Final Stage is scheduled to end at Lap 400 at Dover) the opportunity to gain chunks of points for drivers to make up ground in the standings is very much a factor. McMurray enters Sunday's Apache Warrior 400 presented by Lucas Oil (2 p.m. ET on NBCSN, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) nine points to the good side of the cutline in 11th place. "It’s going to be different this year because in the years past, I think it was two years ago with Dale Jr. I knew that all I had to do -- if (Kevin) Harvick won the race, I knew for the last 200 laps that all I had to do was outrun Dale Jr.," McMurray said recalling back to the 2015 fall race where he finished fourth to Earnhardt Jr.'s third and just missed advancing to the Round of 12."It’s not as easy as knowing you need to be 'X' amount of positions in front or behind somebody because if you finish second or third in the stage earlier in the race that completely changes the points. And so, you are going to be dependent on the team to kind of fill you in like if you have to have another position or if someone is pressuring you that you can maybe give up that position and not get wrecked."
Ricky Stenhouse Jr. comes into Sunday's race holding the final provisional transfer spot in the Round of 12. Stenhouse is tied with Austin Dillon and a point ahead of Ryan Newman, but the Roush Fenway Racing driver holds the edge on Dillon thanks to the best finish in the Round of 16 tiebreaker -- Stenhouse Jr.'s 15th in New Hampshire is one spot better than Dillon's 16th in Chicago.
RELATED: Playoff standings "It is going to be a battle," Stenhouse said. "I think there is some strategy you can play to maybe get some stage points, but you don't want to give up too much track position here. It will be a fine line of what your crew chief wants to do -- but it will be a heck of a battle for sure."And at a track where he finished 39th in June, Stenhouse knows trouble can lurk around every corner and change playoff positions in an instant.
"It is always easy to make mistakes," Stenhouse said. "You have to watch other people around you and be able to get on and off pit road. There are a lot of things that you have to pay attention to yourself, not just what Austin and Ryan are doing. Heck, who knows. The 41 (Kurt Busch, sits 15th in the standings, 17 points behind Stenhouse) could go out and get stage points and all of us miss stage points and before the end of the race you are talking about him, as well. We have to go out and do the best we can and really kind of keep your head down until after that second stage and then see where things shake up and go for it after that."The Richard Childress Racing teammates Dillon and Newman both sit just outside the cutline and Dillon expects it "to be a race within the race."
"You’ve got to be smart throughout and make sure you're there at the end and put yourself in good positions," Dillon, the driver of the No. 3 Chevrolet said. "I'm looking forward to the challenge. It's a little championship run here for all three of us this race. One of us, I think, obviously, is going to get to the next round. So, we've got to make it happen." RELATED: Round of 16 Playoffs bubble watch Three years ago, with a spot in the Championship 4 on the line, Newman made it happen, by giving a bump on the last lap to Kyle Larson to grab the spot he needed for the championship battle at Homestead-Miami Speedway. The veteran driver of the No. 31 Chevrolet used the information he had from crew chief Luke Lambert to know what he to do to advance. "Would I have made that move not knowingly? Absolutely not," Newman said. "So, I think there's a time and a place for that information and it can benefit you; but it can also ruin your day or somebody else's. "I was aware of it on the last restart of where we needed to finish. And not knowing where Jeff (Gordon) was at that point, if he gained or lost a couple of spots in that last run. I knew what our guaranteed spot was, but not where he was going to finish, or roughly where he was going to finish, or where I needed to finish. So, it makes a difference, obviously. "It created a lot of excitement and enthusiasm at least, on our part, but it's not where we wanted to finish. We're there to win."