DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — With his teammates locked into the playoffs and his championship eligibility on the line at a track where drafting help often overrides everything, Alex Bowman remains a realist.
Even having the Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolets of William Byron, Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson as potential wingmen, there will be no easy path into the playoffs Saturday night at Daytona International Speedway (7:30 ET, NBC, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, Peacock).
“If it was that simple, every three-car or four-car team would get their guy in every year, and it never happens that way,” said Bowman, who is on the bubble of the 16-driver field entering the regular-season finale. “There’s a lot of different things that can happen and it’s a long race with a lot of things that are totally outside of your control. I don’t think our plan is any different. You’re going to see us pit together. That’s what we do every year. We’re going to work together when we can, and when we can’t, we won’t.
“I’d be shocked if at any point in the race you see three Hendrick Chevys lined up behind me, pushing. I don’t think this style of racing works that way or gives us a position to even do that anymore.”
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Fuel-mileage strategies have turned Daytona into a peloton of nonstop position shuffling at the “World Center of Racing” — so running nose-to-tail with four cars for 400 miles is problematic at best.
“Yeah, it’s not that easy, and I don’t know if that’s the right tactic either,” said Byron, who will be unable to provide much early help because his No. 24 Chevrolet will serve a stop-and-go penalty at the green flag for failing inspection twice. “This thing’s very complicated. You just try to be conscious of that. It’s no secret. Everyone’s going to have some sort of playoff implication, so it’s going to be very strategic throughout the field on who’s helping who.”
Indeed, there will be myriad agendas that will muddle the simplicity of amassing an armada to march a car into Victory Lane (and the playoffs) in a “Three Musketeers”-style storyline. With apologies to author Alexandre Dumas, “all for one, and one for all” will have an entirely different meaning at Daytona.
“All for one” is the mantra for Hendrick and Joe Gibbs Racing. Each powerhouse has three of its four cars locked into the playoffs and can marshal its resources accordingly to focus on ensuring a full fleet of championship eligibility.
“One for all” is the unenviable spot for Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing, which has none of its three drivers locked in and only one available playoff spot to be claimed by Chris Buescher, Brad Keselowski or Ryan Preece. The same holds true for the trios at Spire Motorsports (Michael McDowell, Carson Hocevar and Justin Haley) and Front Row Motorsports (Todd Gilliland, Zane Smith and Noah Gragson).
And there are three more teams (Trackhouse Racing, 23XI Racing, Richard Childress Racing) with at least one driver in the playoffs and another trying to make it.
With 14 winners locked into the playoffs, only Bowman and Tyler Reddick can make the field on points — there are 20 drivers who can qualify only with a win.
While Byron has clinched the Regular Season Championship, there is still the opportunity for lots of movement throughout the points standings that will determine the distribution of playoff points.
And with so many drivers and teams pursuing so many divergent goals, it seems inevitable the conflicting agendas will produce the invariable chaos at the 2.5-mile track.
“It’s going to be a mess,” McDowell said. “We all know it and lived it and seen it. That’s why this race is so unpredictable, because the desperation is so high for everybody.”
There are some strange bedfellows among the various scenarios. Consider that if Bowman or Reddick wins, the other driver will lock into the playoffs.
“After the stages end, we might be each other’s best friends, so it is a really weird situation,” Bowman said.
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But the best way to navigate the frenzy is with the help of teammates.
“Yeah, I think that when it comes to this race in particular, you need each other,” McDowell said. “I think that the way you give yourself the best chance to run up front and have help when you need it is to have your help be your teammates.”
The emphasis at Hendrick will be helping Bowman — and not necessarily with a drafting push.
“Keeping Alex in mind is the main priority,” Larson said. “But the good thing with it is he can still make it on points, so if any Hendrick guys win, he’s good. So that makes it easy on all of us. But we’re not going to be selfish in that.”
The situation is different at JGR for Ty Gibbs, who can qualify for the playoffs only through a victory.
Teammate Christopher Bell, who is in the playoffs with Denny Hamlin and Chase Briscoe, said JGR’s drivers and crew chiefs had been mapping out strategies with Toyota engineers.
“We’ll have a powwow at some point to discuss what the game plan is to try and execute these speedway races and more so than just getting Ty into Victory Lane, just trying to perform better and finish better at these races,” Bell said. “We had a great Daytona 500. We had a lot of cars in contention to win, but it was a little bit unique with no green-flag pit stop. So that really eliminated the strategy. Whenever it comes to the strategy side, it’s no secret that we’ve been a little bit behind.
“We can blame it on numbers, but I don’t really think it’s numbers. I just think the Fords and the Chevrolets beat us, and it seems like they’ve got a hold on this style of racing, and we’re just behind right now.”
Bell said there were no overriding directives of deference to help put the No. 54 driven by team owner Joe Gibbs’ grandson in the playoffs.
“We all know that it’s a big deal, but Joe’s not sitting up here telling us that we need to get the 54 in at all costs,” Bell said. “Never once in my career has he told me that I need to sacrifice a win of the race for someone else. At the end of the day, it’s going to be the best man’s gonna come out on top, but we certainly want to give Ty an opportunity and by giving Ty an opportunity it should help us out, too.”
There were also intense pre-race discussions at Trackhouse Racing, which is trying to help Daniel Suárez join Ross Chastain and Shane van Gisbergen in the playoffs.
As a rookie still learning to dodge the massive wrecks common at superspeedways, van Gisbergen said he would be judicious about helping Suárez at the expense of a risky situation.
“Obviously you want to be a good teammate, but we also don’t need to get involved in all the stuff,” van Gisbergen said. “There’s three three-car teams that are all in a must-win, and they’re going to be all teaming up, pushing hard, and Ross and I don’t need to get involved. But we also want another Trackhouse car in there. So yeah, it was an interesting and dynamic conversation, because we both want to help Daniel, but how we play it in, it’s going to be interesting.
“I’ll be pushing him if I get the chance. I’ll be really trying, but if you see it all turning to (crap), I’m going to be the first to bail as well. I don’t want to risk myself in the car for no reason, and especially if it’s in Stage 2. (Suárez) wants to be up there all the race, which is fine, and I’ll be there with him as long as I’m comfortable.”
The best team on drafting tracks actually has the least at stake Saturday night.
With Ryan Blaney, Joey Logano, Austin Cindric qualified for the playoffs, Team Penske will enter Daytona with little stress but some immense leverage to help its manufacturer add another car to the playoffs. Over the past three seasons, Penske cars have led 1,123 of 3,392 laps raced on drafting tracks — more than three times those led by any other team.
Ford drivers have led more than half the laps at Daytona since the advent of the Next Gen car, and Cindric said Penske drivers had been “highly encouraged” to help the Mustangs of RFK Racing, Front Row Motorsports and Rick Ware Racing.
“If one of those guys is in a position to win, that’s a huge deal to have more Fords in the playoffs,” Cindric said. “If I have a choice to push a Ford or a different manufacturer across the line, I’m pushing that Ford every time, no doubt.”
Even though he is in a playoff battle with teammates Buescher and Keselowski, Preece believes the speed of the RFK Fords can overcome the advantage of Hendrick and Gibbs having all of its cars qualified.
“Honestly, yeah, they have three cars that are locked in, but we’ve got three race teams that have extremely fast race cars that take control of these races,” Preece said. “So if you’re going to try and win this race, I guarantee you’re going to have to go through an RFK car to win. I feel like we’re in a strong position to get one of our cars in and good luck to the other ones that are going to have to get through us.”