LONG POND, PA. – With six races remaining to set the 16-driver 2023 NASCAR Cup Series Playoff field, the summer race season has provided plenty of compelling action both atop the championship standings and around that important 16th place cutoff position. There are 11 drivers locked into the Playoffs with five positions still to be settled in this next month and a half.
The NASCAR Cup Series visits four tracks for the first time this season in the remaining six-race span to set the postseason field, including Sunday’s HighPoint.com 400 at Pocono (Pa.) Raceway (2:30 p.m. ET on USA Network, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
With a victory – his third of the season – last week at New Hampshire, Joe Gibbs Racing driver Martin Truex Jr. arrives in Pocono with a 17-point advantage over Hendrick Motorsports’ William Byron in the regular season standings.
A rough day in New England for Richard Childress Racing’s Kyle Busch, he finished last after an early-race single-car incident, has shuffled the upper portion of the points standings. Busch went into the weekend ranked second, only 36 points off Byron’s then-leading pace. But now the two-time series champion has fallen to fifth, 74 points behind Truex.
Among the top five drivers in the standings – Truex, Byron, Christopher Bell, Denny Hamlin and Busch – all but Byron and Bell have previous wins at the 2.5-mile “Tricky Triangle” as the three-turn Pocono Raceway is called.
Joe Gibbs Racing’s Denny Hamlin is tied with NASCAR Hall of Famer Jeff Gordon for the most Pocono wins – establishing his excellence at the track immediately with a sweep of the two Pocono races in his 2006 rookie season. It looked as if Hamlin would have the record all to himself after crossing the finish line first in last year’s Pocono race, but both he and then-teammate Busch – who finished runner-up – were disqualified after the race for technical violations, giving the victory to third-place finisher Chase Elliott.
Elliott, driver of the No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, still bristles at being called “the winner” from that race, but a victory there this weekend sure would go a long way toward turning his 2023 fortunes. After missing five races with injury and another for an aggressive driving penalty, the 2020 NASCAR Cup Series champion finds himself well outside the top-16 heading to Pocono – a full 60 points behind Michael McDowell in that final 16th place Playoff position.
Elliott has four top-five and eight top-10 finishes in 13 Pocono starts. Before he was awarded the victory last summer, his previous best finish had been fourth place (2016, ’19 and ’20).
Closer to the cutoff line, 15th place Bubba Wallace holds a slight two-point edge on 17th place Daniel Suarez. McDowell has only a single point up on the Trackhouse Racing driver Suarez. Kaulig Racing driver A.J. Allmendinger is ranked 18th, 20 points behind McDowell.
Rookie Ty Gibbs is only 31 points out of a Playoff position in what has been a quiet, steady, successful opening season for the defending NASCAR Xfinity Series champion. He’s had five top-10 finishes this season – three ninth-place showings his best to date. He made his NASCAR Cup Series debut at Pocono last year, substituting for injured 23XI Racing driver Kurt Busch, and finished 16th.
“It’s really cool for us and being a rookie, it’s really special to run up front and having a chance to run for the Playoffs,” said Gibbs, who drives the No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota. “Just need to have a couple good weeks and we’ll be back in it, hopefully and be able to go and race for a win and that will take care of all that.”
“I think I’ve had a good experience at almost all the upcoming tracks except the speedways and so I’m happy about that. I enjoy Pocono, Michigan and Richmond. I’m excited for them and hopefully we can knock off a win.”
There are 10 Pocono race winners in this week’s field, including Hamlin, Kyle Busch (four) and Truex (two) who are multi-race winners. Elliott, Alex Bowman, Kevin Harvick, Ryan Blaney, Brad Keselowski, Chris Buescher and reigning NASCAR Cup Series champion Joey Logano all have a trophy too.
Among those, only Bowman and Elliott are currently outside the top-16 in the Playoff standings. Bowman missed three races recovering from a concussion and sits 20th in the standings, 42 points behind McDowell.
Practice for the HighPoint.com 400 is scheduled for 2:35 p.m. ET on Saturday with Busch Light Pole Qualifying following at 3:20 p.m. – both sessions airing on USA Network at 3 p.m. ET.
Source: Holly Cain/NASCAR Wire Service
