With Austin Dillon losing his playoff spot in the fallout from the Richmond finish, Chris Buescher and Ross Chastain enter this weekend equal on points at 584. Buescher is the defending winner at Michigan, while Chastain was the fastest driver in practice on Saturday.
Although neither has reached Victory Lane in 2024, both drivers had brushes with the checkered flag this season. Chastain spun while making a daring lead for the win in the Daytona 500, and was also in contention late at Texas and Nashville before being wrecked.
Buescher has been even closer to winning, cutting down a tire after contact with Tyler Reddick as they battled for the lead at Darlington. He also lost out to Kyle Larson in the closest finish in NASCAR Cup Series history at Kansas -- 0.001s!
The RFK Racing driver is "excited to come back to Michigan," again, hoping to "show the speed that we've had at a lot of these bigger racetracks in the last couple of months. We have not executed the races to the best extent and we don't have the results to show for it, but we've been very fast at these places."
Although Michigan is one of the bigger tracks on the schedule at two-miles in length, "chasing dirty air" remains paramount with this car and passing will still be difficult.
"I know that conversation sucks to have, and we're all sick of saying it too and hearing it, but it matters when you're running 200mph -- more than anywhere," explained Buescher. "So you're going to have those conversations. For us, it's not changing because of our situation. We are doing the same things every week, but it's going to become more and more important for us to execute at the highest level.”
Making fewer mistakes
Chastain has not been in this position since joining Trackhouse three seasons ago. He won two races early in the 2022 season. Last year, his victory at Nashville locked him into the playoffs during the month of June.
The driver of the No. 1 Chevrolet just wants to "go faster," and so far this weekend, he is getting his wish after topping the practice charts. "That’s going to solve a lot of our problems.”
Looking at the current playoff picture, Chastain added: "I mean you look at Christopher (Buescher) and I, we’re tied in points. We have the same average finishing position. It’s funny.. I don’t feel like we’ve raced around each other a ton. Yeah, I don’t look at anything other than trying to go fast. Coming out of the break, obviously you go to Richmond and run up inside the top-10; drive up there from the 20s and into 11th-ish. And then to race and go on and finish fifth, that’s better than we have been for several months. So that’s the only thing we’re focused on -- executing."
Like Buescher, Chastain also noted the importance of executing in these final three races, putting extra focus on mitigating mistakes. Speeding penalties early in the season potentially robbed him of a chance to win Las Vegas, and left Pocono with a single point after a single-car spin. Although Richmond was one of his best results in months, it was not without its unforced errors.
"I missed pit road at Richmond in Stage 2 on the second green flag stop," confessed Chastain. "That cost us spots when we were ahead of the No. 3 (race winner Austin Dillon) at that time. I came out several seconds behind him, the No. 23 (Bubba Wallace) and somebody else, and I never passed them again. So minimizing those kind of mistakes. Obviously it’s a lot bigger penalty here if you miss pit road. Or if you speed. That’s more often going to be the case here."
Chastain rolls off seventh in Sunday's race, while Buescher starts 18th. Qualifying was rained out, so the starting grid was set by the metric. They are not alone in this fight to make the playoffs on points, as Bubba Wallace sits just three points ahead of both drivers. They'll also have to keep an eye on Ty Gibbs, who is only 18pts clear of Buescher and Chastain.
And of course, any other driver below the cut-line winning over the next three weeks will instantly change the playoff picture once again.
