DAYTONA BEACH – With two laps to go in last Saturday’s Coke Zero Sugar 400 at the Daytona International Speedway, it didn’t appear Ryan Blaney had a chance to win the race, or Alex Bowman was going to qualify for the NASCAR Playoffs. But a lot can happen in the final five miles of a superspeedway race, especially when 27 drivers are running side-by-side, nose-to-tail, each desperately trying to take one final shot at making the playoffs with a longshot victory.

With time to make a plan, Blaney created a third lane against the outside wall, and Cole Custer joined him.

“You have no time to think about that stuff. It’s a bang-bang play. You’d better just go with what your gut says. That was our opportunity to do it. It just kind of worked to where he and I were on the same page, where we kind of just moved up together, and we were able to carry all the momentum,” Blaney said.

That momentum didn’t stop until Blaney made the final pass a quarter-mile short of the finish line to win the race – and clinch the 16^th and final spot in the playoffs for Bowman.

Daniel Suarez wound up second, followed by Justin Haley in third, CCuster in fourth and Erik Jones in fifth. If Suarez, Haley, Custer or Jones had won, they would have moved into the playoffs, and Bowman would have been eliminated.

Early festivities included a concert by the country's Gretchen Wilson, a couple of fly-bys by a quartet of fighter jets, and a double Black Hawk helicopter stop-and-drop that was an unexpected bonus feature of the day's activities.
A field of 16 drivers is set for the start of three rounds of championship eliminations, starting with the Sunday, Aug. 31, Cook Out Southern 500 at the Darlington (S.C.) Raceway.