Pocono Turning Point: Next surprise playoff driver, the trick to winning this weekend, more

Here’s what’s happening in the world of NASCAR with Chicago in the rearview and Pocono Raceway (Sun., 4:30 p.m. ET, NBC) right around the corner.

THE LINEUP ️

1️⃣ Who could be the next surprise playoff driver?

2️⃣ The trick to winning at Pocono? Beat the Toyotas

3️⃣ Jeff Gordon on No. 48’s long-term prospects

4️⃣ Never over till it’s over at the ‘Tricky Triangle’

5️⃣ Catch the pack – news and notes from around the garage

1. Who could be the next surprise entrant to the playoffs?

With a handful of playoff spots there for the taking, most of the drivers around the elimination line are battling bouts of inconsistency — except for one.

Well, how about that?

Last week, we posited here about the potential for the No. 48 car missing the playoffs for the second year in a row — and Alex Bowman immediately goes out and punches his ticket to the postseason at Chicago, snapping an 80-race skid since his last trip to Victory Lane.

For the second week in a row that moves a driver sitting on the elimination line upward in the standings, pushing some big names — Ross Chastain and Chris Buescher, in particular — into some quite uncomfortable territory. Each has a reasonable cushion, with Buescher’s +45 over Bubba Wallace slotting him in as the 16th and final driver, but six races remain, and those leads are in no way safe.

Bowman’s win was unexpected, but not surprising. His Hendrick Motorsports teammates were among the favorites and he’s come close on road courses before. Not to mention Hendrick has now won all three such races this year, as the clear team to beat on them — which is important to know, with two of them now in the playoffs.

The victory did, however, feel like just the appetizer to a main course of potential surprises over the next six races as the bubble gets more interesting and drivers get more desperate.

What’s so interesting is that of the four above and four below the current elimination line, almost all of them have been struggling of late. Martin Truex Jr., the top driver in the standings without a win, has just one top 10 in the last eight races. Teammate Ty Gibbs right below him was strong at Chicago, but his third-place run there was just his first top 10 in six races. Ross Chastain has led in just two races since Kansas, Chris Buescher has been close lately but can’t seem to break through to lead at the end and Bubba Wallace, minus-45 to the RFK Racing driver, has just a pair of top 10s in the last 11 races.

Continuing on, Chase Briscoe rode the high of a wild and newsy weekend at New Hampshire to a runner-up finish but otherwise has five finishes outside the top 20 in the last seven contests, and Kyle Busch finally picked up a top 10 at Chicago for his first such result in the last eight.

Even if any of these drivers should wind up making it (and some more than likely will) this obviously isn’t the kind of consistency that leads to a lengthy playoff run.

But that was only seven drivers — and there’s an eighth worth mentioning who has been quite consistent, and his name is Todd Gilliland.

Not only has the No. 38 driver not finished worse than 17th since April, but he’s also culled together a very Chase Elliott-esque top-20 streak of nine races, the longest in Front Row Motorsports’ history. He’s finished better than he’s started in each of the last seven races, finished on the lead lap in all but four this year and actually owns the fourth-best average finish (12.33) over the last six weeks, ahead of Elliott (12.83), and right behind Tyler Reddick (7.59), Buescher (10.83) and defending champ Ryan Blaney (12.17).

Gilliland was a top-15 finisher at Pocono last year, for what it’s worth, and if you’re looking for who might be the next “surprise” entrant to the 2024 playoffs, he’s certainly the driver currently not locked in that’s building the biggest head of steam at the moment.