{"id":59116,"date":"2022-08-28T21:50:06","date_gmt":"2022-08-28T21:50:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/nascar-playoff-field-set-after-daytona-finals\/"},"modified":"2022-08-28T21:50:06","modified_gmt":"2022-08-28T21:50:06","slug":"nascar-playoff-field-set-after-daytona-finals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/nascar-playoff-field-set-after-daytona-finals\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR playoff field set after Daytona finals"},"content":{"rendered":"
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After the regular-season finals at Daytona, NASCAR’s 16-driver playoff field is now set … and it wouldn’t be a crucial NASCAR race without a whole lot of controversy. In the end, though, Austin Dillon won at Daytona, punching a last-second ticket into the playoffs and knocking Martin Truex Jr. below the cut line. Ryan Blaney survived a long, harrowing race and ended up being the only non-race winner to reach the 2022 NASCAR playoffs.<\/p>\n

Delayed 15 hours by weather, and then red-flagged late in the race by even more bad weather, the Coke Zero Sugar 400 was paused with 21 laps remaining. But many drivers felt the race should have been halted even sooner, complaining that a track too slick to drive led to a major wreck that thinned out the field.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey had about a whole lap to call a caution and tore up a lot of race cars,\u201d Justin Haley said during a red-flag break. \u201cThat was pretty unacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe knew the rain was coming,\u201d Daniel Suarez said. \u201cIt was raining next door. It’s just a matter of time. Why wait for it? I don’t know. I’m a little biased because I was in the front.\u201d<\/p>\n

Team Penske’s Blaney and Joe Gibbs Racing’s Truex came into Daytona needing to hold their positions as the last two drivers in the playoff grid, and the only ones without a victory before Saturday. As long as a driver without a win didn’t leap up and capture the checked flag, they’d both make the playoffs … but unfortunately for Truex, that’s exactly what happened.<\/p>\n

A pair of wrecks prior to the final laps scrambled the playoff chances of both Blaney and Truex. Blaney got collected in a wreck on Lap 31, in the closing laps of Stage 1, damaging his steering and plummeting him deep into the field. Truex, who came into the race 25 points behind Blaney, finished second in Stage 2 to trim Blaney’s lead to just 10 points. Moments after the start of Stage 3, in Lap 102, Truex found himself collected in another wreck, one that caused severe damage to his right front fender. But with Blaney six laps down, enough drivers were taken out of the race in wrecks that Truex could gain position after position on Blaney, and as of the red flag, Truex was 12 points up on Blaney.<\/p>\n