Playoff Teams Are Prioritizing Points, Not Wins

Did You Notice? … Two of the four NASCAR Cup Series playoff races have been won by drivers that failed to qualify for the postseason?

While non-playoff drivers playing spoiler in the postseason is nothing new, it’s the nature in how Chris Buescher and Ross Chastain scored their wins at Watkins Glen International and Kansas Speedway, respectively, that has raised eyebrows.

At Watkins Glen International, five of the top-10 starters were non-playoff drivers. Chastain won the pole, while his Trackhouse Racing proxy teammate Shane van Gisbergen started third. The pair dominated the first stage, but they sacrificed stage points and hit pit road early in order to maintain track position.

Eight of the top-10 finishers in stage one consisted of playoff drivers, and they were immediately banished to the back of the field at the start of stage two, never to return to winning contention.

You see, Watkins Glen was promised as a race of tire wear, with tires that were reportedly losing two seconds of lap time in a 20-lap run. It was expected that the tire wear would lead to more passing, but that’s not what happened at all. All the playoff drivers thinking that they could make up that lost ground suddenly found themselves making zero progress, and the drivers that pitted before stage end never relinquished their advantage.

For non-playoff drivers, stage points meant absolutely nothing. Track position and racing for the win were the only things that mattered, and they had the race on lock. Non-playoff drivers combined to lead 81 of the race’s 92 laps, and when it came time for drivers to pit before the end of stage two, all the drivers that got burned by staying out in stage one humorously hit pit road the first moment they could.

Buescher, who missed a playoff spot by a mere six points, short pit both stages and found himself in the top five as the highest running car on fresh tires to start the final stage. The final stage developed into a battle between Buescher, van Gisbergen, Chastain and Carson Hocevar, with Buescher prevailing over van Gisbergen in a thrilling final lap duel.

Just two playoff drivers finished in the top 10, with Chase Briscoe finishing the best of the playoff faithful in sixth. The entire top five of a playoff race was swept by non-playoff drivers, marking the first time that had ever happened in the 21-year history of NASCAR’s postseason.

Flash forward to Kansas, and it was a similar flip of track…