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August 11, 2024

Daniel Dye delivers at Richmond, clinches final berth in Truck Series Playoffs field


RICHMOND, Va. — Daniel Dye’s fate for the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Playoffs rested on making up a five-point deficit in Saturday’s regular-season finale at Richmond Raceway. He knew that defensive driving wasn’t going to get him there, and decided that receiving continual running updates on the provisional standings wouldn’t help, either.

In the end, he made it, becoming the first Truck Series driver to jump into the postseason pool in the finale from below the elimination line, finishing eighth in the Clean Harbors 250 and supplanting Tanner Gray as the last qualifier for the 10-driver playoff field. Gray was the first driver out, ending up 12 points shy of Dye after placing 12th.

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Dye, the 20-year-old in his second Truck Series season, stuck to his plan of focusing forward — without the ever-changing details about where his rivals were running in the No. 43 team’s radio transmissions.

“I said earlier in the week, I really didn’t want to know what was going on with everybody else,” Dye said post-race after clinching his first playoff berth. “As soon as you start playing defense, you kind of get in the way of your potential. So no, after we got quite a bit of stage points to get a swell, I started thinking about it a little bit more so we maybe didn’t have to be as aggressive, but no, I asked one question the whole time. Then it’s just, when you’re behind, you’ve got to be on offense. If you’re in by 15 or 20 (points) coming into the race, maybe play a little defense, but when you’re out by five, you’ve got to go to work.”

Finishes of sixth and third in the stages made the difference for Dye, who collected 13 stage points while Gray was shut out at the breaks. Gray started 26th after his Tricon Garage No. 15 team battled through early issues — including brake trouble through practice and qualifying — and he was the beneficiary of a mid-race caution to return to the lead lap.

“Overall, we were just too sloppy throughout the year,” Gray said. “Made a lot of mistakes, myself included, and just should have never been in the position to be on the (elimination line) in the first place. I feel like with all the resources and tools that we have over at Tricon Garage and Toyota, that we’re most certainly a playoff-caliber team, and it seems like year after year, we find a way to screw it up. So we definitely need to look in the mirror and have some self-reflection and just figure out where I need to be better, where we can be better as a whole and just clean up all the mistakes that we make that puts us behind too much. Just got to be better.”

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Dye joins Regular Season Champion Christian Eckes, top-seeded Corey Heim, Saturday’s winner Ty Majeski, Nick Sanchez, Rajah Caruth, Tyler Ankrum, Grant Enfinger, Taylor Gray and defending champ Ben Rhodes in the 10-driver field. Taylor Gray and Rhodes were the only other drivers to clinch on the basis of points; the former was in by Stage 1, and Rhodes ensured his shot at a third championship in four years by a 34-point margin.

“I’m pretty darn relaxed, actually,” said Rhodes, who was up by 22 points entering Saturday night’s race. “I’ve been in a lot more stressful situations than this, so I guess you could say ‘forged by fire’ over the years. We’ve been in situations where we’ve been in on tiebreakers, one point going into the weekend spread, so this was plush — 22 points, I wasn’t really stressing. I just knew we had to execute the things we could control. Luckily for us tonight, everything worked out in our favor on the stuff that we couldn’t. There was a couple close calls, but for the most part, we came in here with with a better program than we’ve been running in the past few weeks, which gives us good momentum going into the playoffs.”

Heim, who finished 16th, earned the No. 1 seed based on his five regular-season wins. Eckes, a three-time winner this year, secured a bonus of 15 playoff points for clinching the regular-season title. He’s slotted just three points behind Heim as the second seed.

“I think the biggest thing for us is the bonus points. That obviously helps a lot,” said Eckes, who sealed the crown after winning Stage 1. “So it’s exciting to get the championship, but at the same time, we’ve got a lot more work to do to get the big one at the end of the year. So like I said, proud of the guys, but still a lot more work to do.”

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