DAYTONA BEACH – Alex Bowman seemingly rode shotgun with Ryan Blaney during a turbulent final two laps of the Coke Zero 400 last Saturday night.
The front of the field was filled with drivers who were primed to knock Bowman out of the NASCAR playoffs. Blaney was mired back in 13th place with two laps remaining when his improbable charge to the front started. Even more impressive, it came without a massive wreck that’s common in the final 10 laps at the Daytona International Speedway.
Blaney decided to create a third lane of traffic against the outside wall and Cole Custer chose to go with him. They quickly moved closer to the front, then Custer got cut off. Blaney then got a push from Daniel Suarez, and that was enough to get him to the finish line.
Suarez wound up second, followed by Justin Haley in third, Custer in fourth and Erik Jones in fifth. If Suarez, Haley, Custer or Jones had won, they would have qualified for the playoffs and Bowman would have been eliminated. Bowman now moves on to the first round of the eliminations as the 16h and final qualifier by edging Chris Buescher by one point.
“What a wild couple of last laps,” said Blaney, who waited until the end to move through traffic aggressively. “It’s definitely not as traditional a way as we like to run them; we like to lead laps and things like that. We just couldn’t really get there until the last second.”
Fourteen of the drivers earned their spots by winning a race during the regular season. Tyler Reddick and Bowman filled out the field on points. The playoffs start next Sunday at the Darlington (S.C.) Raceway and the field will be trimmed by four drivers every three races until the final four will compete for the winner-take-all race at the Phoenix Raceway on Nov. 2.
Bowman was one of a dozen drivers who were involved in a big crash on the 27th lap as the field crossed the start/finish line. It appeared Bubba Wallace moved low, and Kyle Busch moved high with Joey Logano in the middle to trigger a massive pileup that also included Denny Hamlin, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Noah Gragson, Riley Herbst, Austin Hill and Carson Hocevar.
Bowman had to watch the final 133 laps from his motorcoach. If anyone who hadn’t won a race this year drove into Victory Lane, he would have been out of the playoffs. He watched the broadcast, turned his cellphone off and avoided social media. And he prayed.
“[There’s] nothing you can do,” Bowman said. “Welcome to superspeedway racing, unfortunately.”
Traditionalists bemoan the playoff system because it doesn’t reward results. It favors a team that gets lucky at the right time. Nobody appreciates that more than Bowman.
NASCAR introduced the playoff format in 2004, following Matt Kenseth's 2003 championship win with just one victory. However, he did have 11 top-five and 25 top-10 finishes, and he only failed to finish two races.
The original playoff format was called the “Chase for the Championship.” It was known in the garage area as the “Matt Kenseth Rule” because some fans found him to be unexciting. That same year, Ryan Newman won eight races, but he finished sixth in the standings.
Starting in 2004, the top 10-ranked drivers and anyone within 400 points of the leader moved into the Chase. The first-place driver began with a five-point lead, and five points separated everyone else for the final 10 races.
NASCAR has tweaked the playoff format three times since it arrived at its current made-for-television format, and it has created some curious outcomes.
In 2014, Newman didn’t win a race, but he came within a half-second of winning the championship by finishing behind Kevin Harvick at the season finale in the head-to-head matchup.
Since the sanctioning body for stock-car racing added its postseason twists 22 years ago, the driver who had the most victories during the season won the championship just seven times.
Denny Hamlin, who has been a critic of the playoff system, said a season of running up front can be undone with one troublesome afternoon in Phoenix. Chase Elliott and Dale Earnhardt Jr. both agreed.
It also created the very real possibility of Reddick or Bowman not being in the playoffs this year, and an upset driver like Haley, Custer, Cody Ware, Joey Gase, B.J. McLeod, Hocevar, Gragson, John Hunter Nemechek or Herbst getting in. Anything is possible at a superspeedway track like Daytona that produces long-shot winners. There were 44 lead changes on Saturday among 19 drivers, including Ware, Custer, Nemechek and Haley. In fact, the last two cars Blaney passed in the final half mile were driven by Haley and Custer.
Much to the relief of Bowman.
