The Chase cutline looked wide open before Richmond, with seven drivers separated by a manageable points gap. But Team Penske driver Austin Cindric, who was 16th before the Cook Out 400, finished third, and that changed the picture for many who were chasing the cutline.
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Cindric is now 15th, while Trackhouse Racing’s Shane van Gisbergen has dropped to 16th, the final position for the Chase drivers. Those behind them, Ryan Preece, Ross Chastain, Brad Keselowski, Erik Jones, and Michael McDowell, arrived in Richmond hoping to make a case for a spot in the Chase. Now, however, they face an impossible or near-impossible climb to qualify.
Jeff Gluck, on The Teardown podcast, assessed the season and laid out the brutal facts ahead of the Cup Series race in New Hampshire next weekend.
“Erik Jones’ Chase hopes are now over,” Gluck began. “As for Michael McDowell, he finished 28th. He goes from minus 72 points to minus 104. So we’re pretty much not even going to be talking about Erik Jones and Michael McDowell at this point. Long shot to even consider Chastain and Keselowski for Daytona.”
The numbers explain why the Chase picture has changed so drastically.
Cindric picked the perfect night to produce his best result of the season, which got him 28 points away from 17th. He’s now just 13 points behind 23XI Racing driver Bubba Wallace, who is in 14th.
At Richmond, van Gisbergen finished a respectable 14th, but Cindric’s performance pushed him down to 16th, leaving him 50 points ahead of Ryan Preece with just two races remaining. That makes things particularly painful for Preece, who entered Richmond only 29 points below the cutline but finished 17th, widening the gap considerably and leaving him with a steep climb to make the Chase.
Even Chastain had a respectable 12th-place finish, which he admitted helped Trackhouse gain some much-needed momentum. But he, too, lost ground, going from 47 points below the cutline to 63. He now needs a major swing in New Hampshire or Daytona, most likely a win, which Gluck feels won’t be happening.
Keselowski suffered an even bigger setback. He qualified ninth but finished 26th in Richmond. As a result, he moved from 48 points behind to 78.
Meanwhile, Jones — who suffered a DNF in Iowa last weekend — finished 27th and fell from 50 points back to 81. McDowell was 28th and dropped from 72 behind to 104. Technically, neither is mathematically eliminated yet. With two races remaining, a driver can still make a massive points swing. But McDowell would need to gain at least 105 points on SVG across those two races, while Jones needs an 82-point swing.
That would require an extraordinary combination of results and misfortune for the drivers ahead.
Even Chastain and Keselowski’s paths remain mathematically alive. But Richmond transformed them from realistic contenders into long shots. And that leaves only Preece as the most credible threat, as Gluck pointed out.
“It’s looking possible after next week that it could come down to Preece being the only one that’s even really in the ballpark. And boy, would he like to have those 25 points back if that’s the case,” Gluck added in the same podcast.
Preece is 50 points behind SVG. But that number could have been less. Those missing 25 points are particularly painful. NASCAR penalized Preece 25 driver points and fined him $50,000 after determining that he intentionally wrecked Ty Gibbs at Texas earlier this season.
Now, with New Hampshire next and Daytona closing the regular season, those points could be the difference between watching The Chase from the outside and making the field.