• Wednesday, August 14th, 2024
• NASCAR Wire Service - Holly Cain

Pressure mounts with only three races left in the NASCAR Cup Series regular season

It’s been a headline-making week for the NASCAR Cup Series even before teams arrive at Michigan International Speedway for Sunday’s FireKeepers Casino 400 (2:30 p.m. ET on USA Network, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

NASCAR ruled Wednesday that last weekend’s Richmond (Va.) Raceway race winner, Richard Childress Racing’s Austin Dillon, would not be eligible for the 2024 Playoffs despite the victory – because of the aggressive manner he took to win on the last lap of overtime.

His No. 3 RCR Chevrolet hit the rear of then-race leader Joey Logano’s No. 22 Team Penske Ford, knocking the car from the lead position into the wall. Immediately afterward, Dillon veered low on track and hit new leader Denny Hamlin’s No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota just a few yards before crossing the finish line – all resulting in Dillon’s first victory in nearly two years.

NASCAR officials said that although Dillon gets to keep the Richmond trophy, he violated the NASCAR rules book regarding Playoff status. It reads, “Race finishes must be unencumbered by violation(s) of the NASCAR Rules or other action(s) detrimental to stock car auto racing or NASCAR as determined in the sole discretion of NASCAR.”

In addition to losing Playoff eligibility for the Richmond win, Dillon and his team were penalized 25 points in each the driver and owner’s championship. Dillon’s spotter, Brandon Benesch, has been suspended for three races for telling his driver to “wreck him” as Dillon came upon Logano’s car.

Dillon’s team immediately answered Wednesday’s penalties with a statement saying it planned to appeal the punishment.

Logano, who was furious after the race and aggressively drove his car down pit road after the checkered flag was fined $50,000 for “compromising” the safety of others.

With Dillon’s penalties, instead of claiming the 13th position in the championship standings – as the season’s 13th different winner – he instead is ranked 31st. And that shake-up in the standings means that Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing’s Chris Buescher moves into the final Playoff points position with only three races remaining to set the 16-driver Playoff field.

Buescher and Trackhouse Racing’s Ross Chastain are each three-points behind Wallace, but Buescher claims the tiebreaker – and that all-important 16th points position – with a pair of runner-up finishes compared to Chastain’s best showing of fourth.

Hendrick Motorsports’ Kyle Larson – who earned his first career NASCAR Cup Series victory at Michigan in 2016 – continues to lead championship standings this week. He’s five-points up on 23XI Racing’s Tyler Reddick and six-points up on his Hendrick teammate Chase Elliott.

The drama comes as the series returns to the fast Michigan two-miler where Buescher is defending race winner – part of a three-race late summer win total for the Texan last year. And he’s hoping, a sign of good times to come again.

Buescher led a race best 52 of the 200 laps last August in his No. 17 RFK Racing Ford Mustang and finished a scant .152-second over Joe Gibbs Racing’s Martin Truex Jr., who is retiring at the end of this season and as with Buescher racing for his first victory of the year.

“I don’t want to change the way we approach our races,” Buscher said of the tight Playoff contention. “I’ve just seen it too many times in our sport where you try and get put back on your heels and change up what you’re doing and it can end up costing you. We’ve got to race our races, put our best foot forward and that should be enough to get us where we need to go.”

Winning at the Michigan track is also a big deal for the manufacturers based in nearby Detroit – long considered “the Motor City.” Ford currently holds a nine-race winning streak at the track and its 44 total wins are most among makes. Ford drivers Logano (2019), Ryan Blaney (2021) and Buescher (2023) are the active drivers with victories during that nine-race run.

“It’s huge, we take a lot of pride in that Heritage trophy and obviously with Ford being right there it’s really important,”’ said the reigning NASCAR Cup Series champion Blaney, driver of the No. 12 Team Penske Ford.

“Edsel [Ford] definitely makes sure that we know that it is important that we keep that there in Detroit at their home base. I was fortunate enough to win there a few years ago and have Edsel there and kind of see that excitement in him. It would be important to keep the streak going, so hopefully we can at least make a run at it and keep that trophy where it belongs.”

• Michigan International Speedway
• FireKeepers Casino 400
• Pole Winner: Denny Hamlin
• Age: 43
• Team: No. 11 - Yahoo! Toyota
• Owner: Joe Gibbs Racing
• Crew Chief: Chris Gabehart
• Start positions set by NASCAR's Performance Metrics Qualifying (PMQ).
• Denny Hamlin won the Pole Award for the FireKeepers Casino 400 by having the highest total PMQ.
• PMQ is a total number calculated on four performance metrics from the previous race:
• 15% of the driver's fastest lap time position.
• 25% of the driver's final race finish position.
• 25% of the owner's final race position.
• 35% of the Owner Points position.

• Drivers Entered: 36
• Laps Scheduled: 200
• Laps Actual: 206 - NASCAR OVERTIME!
• Margin of Victory: 0.168 Seconds
• Time of Race: 3 Hours 2 Minutes 12 Seconds
• Average Speed: 135.675
• Cautions: 7 for 41 laps
• Lead Changes: 26
• Green Flag Passes: 3,768 (22.8 passes per green flag lap)

• FireKeepers Casino 400
• Race Winner: Tyler Reddick
• Age: 28
• Team : No 45 - McDonald's Toyota
• Owner: 23XI Racing
• Crew Chief: Billy Scott
• Tyler Reddick won the FireKeepers Casino 400, his seventh victory in 170 Cup Series races
• This is his second victory and 17th top-10 finish in 2024
• This is his first victory and first top-10 finish in six races at Michigan International Speedway
• William Byron (second) posted his third top-10 finish in ten races at Michigan International Speedway It is his 13th top-10 finish in 2024
• Ty Gibbs (third) posted his second top-10 finish in three races at Michigan International Speedway
• Zane Smith (seventh) was the highest finishing rookie
• Tyler Reddick leads the point standings by 10 points over Chase Elliott