Brickyard 400 gives drivers on bubble another chance to win, make it in to the playoffs

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Chase Briscoe looks at the NASCAR schedule and sees five more chances to lock up a playoff spot.

He heads into the Brickyard 400 squarely on the bubble at No. 16 and fully aware of the stakes.

If he wins, he's in. Anything less will only cause more consternation during the series' two-week Olympic break, so the 29-year-old Briscoe won't play it safe on his home track.

“We’re in that weird spot where we could potentially point our way in, but realistically, we probably have to win, which, at a place like this, I think is nice to know you’re in that must-win situation,” he said. “You can just get super aggressive with strategy. If we were 20 points off the cut line or something, we would probably have to play it a little more conservative.”

Briscoe certainly isn’t the only one facing this predicament. He’s one of six drivers sitting in playoff position with no wins this season, potentially putting their postseason hopes in jeopardy. Martin Truex Jr., Bubba Wallace and Ty Gibbs are all among the group — and all will likely go all out to win one of the Cup's crown jewel races.

Their strategies also could complicate matters for the group trying to stay up front.

Chase Elliott begins this weekend three points ahead of Kyle Larson. Tyler Reddick, the Brickyard pole winner, trails by just 15 points while Danny Hamlin is down 20 with William Byron sitting 57 points behind Elliott.

Each qualified among the top five Saturday. Hamlin starts on the outside of Reddick with the three Hendrick Motorsports teammates —- Elliott, Larson and Byron — lining up next.

While fans may be watching the unusually tight the regular-season title chase, Elliott, the 2020 Cup champ, just wants to steer clear of trouble and collect postseason points.

"I'm trying to run as good as you can, to accumulate as many points as possible and you know winning, that's all that matters,” Elliott said. “The regular-season championship is really meaningless. It's just points.”

But for those lining up behind the leaders, they need to take advantage of every remaining opportunity — adding points or getting a win — especially with the Brickyard returning to Indy's 2.5-mile oval after three years on the 14-turn road course.

“We've got to figure out what we need to do to be better as a whole,” Wallace said after qualifying 17th.

The bottom line

Longtime driver Ricky Stenhouse Jr. learned one lesson from last week’s final stage crash in Pocono: Follow the bottom line on restarts.

The 36-year-old driver was collected in a crash involving Kyle Busch and Corey Lajoie, ending what had been a promising race day. Stenhouse thought he was in ideal before the crash — racing on four fresh tires and taking the high line for what proved to be the final restart of the day.

He doesn’t intend to make the same mistake this weekend.

“Here, the track is obviously a lot narrower than at Pocono, so I think you’ll see people go three wide for sure,” Stenhouse said. “But I feel like between the corners and the way everything plays out, you can’t really go three wide so somebody’s going to have to give and generally it’s the car on top — unless they’re really confident.”

He may employ a similar strategy when racing resumes Aug. xx, too.

“You can’t say it’s the back of the field. I mean it’s happening on the front row, it’s happening all over the place,” Stenhouse said. “It’s just, it’s tough. It’s gotten to where, toward the end of each restart, I definitely might pick the bottom.”

Still upset

Busch held nothing back when he was asked about the LaJoie incident during Friday’s “Pat McAfee Show.” The two-time Cup champ called LaJoie a “liar” and promised “payback is coming.”

On Saturday, a still angry Busch toned down his comments.

“I don’t feel like I’m being backed into a corner where I have to respond,” said Busch, a two-time Brickyard winner. “Just racing’s racing and stuff happens.”

LaJoie will start 19th in the 39-car field. Busch qualified 34th.

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