By David Morgan, Associate Editor
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Saturday night’s Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona will solidify the 16-driver NASCAR Cup Series Playoff field with varying strategies for those drivers that have yet to lock themselves in.
Currently, Ryan Blaney holds the 15th place position in points and has a 25-point advantage over Martin Truex, Jr. in 16th. For these two, the strategy will be two-fold on Saturday as they will be giving their best effort to win the race, but also will be trying to accumulate as many points as possible to stay ahead of the other.
Blaney’s situation is much more stable heading into the 160-lap event, and as the defending champion of the race, the Team Penske driver knows he’ll be in the mix throughout the night.
“I think our mindset is just race like normal,” Blaney said. “Honestly, you always want to go try to win the race. You always want to get stage points. You always want to try to stay out of the wrecks. I don’t really see having any other thought process, you know, and think if you play conservative, you can find yourself in a bad spot at the end of the race.
“You know, if you just ride around the back, don’t get stage points, you can find yourself in a tough spot. So, I think our group does a really good job of just racing and trying to be up front and, you know, be there at the end of these things. So, you always want to race smart. I mean, doesn’t matter what spot you’re in. You want to race smart and I don’t really see us having any different mindset.”
Then there’s Truex, who has never won a race on a superspeedway, and will be hoping to kill two birds with one stone when the race ends, scratching a superspeedway win off his list and punching his ticket to the Playoffs.
If he is unable to win, he’ll have to hope he’s gained enough points throughout the night and a new driver, other than Blaney, isn’t celebrating in Victory Lane.
“We’re not in until it’s over,” Truex said. “I don’t really have any feelings either way. We’re here to race and excited and two scenarios, one we get in on points, or we win the race. That will be optimum because of the points situations. But yeah, we’ll see. You know, we just kind of how it all plays out and we can make our own way in there…
“We had a really strong car here in February. Led a ton of laps won two stages. Then we got kind of banged up and then finished kind of tore up so you…
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