By: Zach Catanzareti, Staff Writer
With ten races left in the Cup Series regular season, the word “playoffs” has become the dominant word through the media center of each racetrack on the summer stretch.
The mention of the word, the reminder of the impending postseason run for a championship can bring stress, optimism… or just straight neglect.
Sunday at Pocono Raceway can be an opportunity race for many on or near the playoff cutline. Ten winners on the season currently leaves six spots left for those old-school point gathers who have yet to score a playoff berth via race win.
Who’s feeling safe, who’s looking for improvement, and who isn’t paying much attention to the cutline?
Chase Briscoe, +39 points
One of the few above the cutline without a win is Chase Briscoe, first-year Joe Gibbs Racing driver. With five top-fives and series-leading four poles, Briscoe’s potential is there to become JGR’s third winner of 2025.
However, five finishes worse than 20th have kept Briscoe in that middle area near the cutline.
Even still, Briscoe is enjoying the new atmosphere following multiple years needing a win to make the playoffs at Stewart-Haas Racing.
“At SHR, a lot of the time none of us were going for wins. We were all battling for top 10s,” Briscoe said. “Where here, everyone wins for the most part at JGR.
“I was telling my wife the other day, ‘I need to win. I really need to win.’ To lock ourselves in the playoffs, but also with it being the culture at JGR. All their guys win.
“Hopefully this weekend will be the weekend for us. The No. 19 has been really, really good here at Pocono. It would for sure be a big relief.”
Chris Buescher, +19 points
Fun fact: The “cutline” is actually a driver. That driver is Chris Buescher, who currently holds down the 16th and final spot on the playoff grid.
Being 19 points to the good, Buescher is far from safe. The RFK Racing driver brings top-10 pace but lacks in critical stage points.
For Buescher, he sees Sunday at Pocono as an opportunity to end the playoff conversation with a win, starting from the second spot.
“It’s a perfect chance to win,” Buescher said after qualifying Saturday. “This plays into what I talk about the most: Fast racecars and good days pay points.
“We are coming out to win races. We are not in that points-racing mentality. I’m not gonna sit there and think we’re racing just one car.”
Ryan Preece, -19 points
That one car is RFK teammate Ryan Preece, the first man on the red end of the playoff picture. Minus 19 points on the cutline, Preece has the humble position of being 17th in a 16-driver playoff grid as of now.
A near-win at Talladega turned into a point nightmare following a postrace DQ. Along with six finishes below 25th and you wouldn’t expect the first-year RFK Racing driver to be in the playoff conversation.
However, the modified standout has otherwise carried the No. 60 Ford to strong finishes in the last two months, scoring three top 10s in the last five races. His six top 10s on the year are a career-high in that category.
And for him, it’s certainly never too early to talk playoffs. This is the first year he has felt confident to make the postseason on points.
“It’s a lot better. A lot nicer,” Preece said regarding fighting on points instead of a must-win. “Every week we have pretty good speed. We are definitely getting our feet underneath us.
“At the beginning of the season, it was a shock to a lot of you guys that we were running the way we were. The consistency at least. We always talk about people pointing in but let’s be honest, there are only one or two guys who do that. There are one or two wild cards that find their way in. With road courses, superspeedways, there are more opportunities to do that.
“For us, the comfort level is there with each other and now we are gonna keep progressing.
AJ Allmendinger, -45 points
Enter the man without a care.
AJ Allmendinger is certainly without the grounds of making the playoffs for the first time since 2014, and for the first time ever making it on points. The Kaulig Racing No. 16 has jumped from 25th to 16th in the regular-season points thanks to a top five at Charlotte among four straight top 20s.
However, it is this improvement that is the very reason Allmendinger isn’t focusing on any playoff talk.
“You guys can talk about the playoffs. If you want the honest answer, I could care less about where we are at in the playoffs. I just want to keep running better,” Allmendinger said.
“If we do that and give ourselves an opportunity to win a race or two, then great.”
For him, Shane van Gisbergen knocking the grid down a spot by winning last week at Mexico City was not a surprise, it was an expectation. One that he hopes to fulfill himself in the next 10 weeks.
“To think we were gonna go all those races without him winning one of them… in my mind, he was already in [the playoffs]. To me, it’s not like we added a spot, he was already there.
“For us, it’s just about getting the best finish possible and seeing where that puts us.”
Kyle Busch, -50 points
Speaking of shake-ups, Kyle Busch believes there are more to come.
“I think there are a few more winners that could possibly win a race and continue to move that [point gap]. The whole win-and-you’re-in thing is alive and well and is the best thing for you. Try and win.”
Sitting -50 behind the cutline, the two-time series champion is in rather rare air, making the playoffs 11 straight years from 2013 to 2023.
Busch has only one top 10 in the last eight races in 2025, but does enter Pocono on Sunday, a track he has won at four times.
However, being more than two years since he last visited Victory Lane, pointing his way in is now his more likely scenario.
“You can do it on points,” he said. “If there are two more winners that are behind you who get in, that puts you to a -100 deficit, then obviously, that is not doable.
“I think the 50 points we are behind right now is achievable. I think any deeper than that and we can’t close in here in these next few weeks, then it will be tough.”
Ricky Stenhouse Jr., -61 points
Digging a little deeper and you will find stories like Ricky Stenhouse Jr. The newly rebranded HYAK Motorsports for 2025 has come out of the gate with admirable pace, scoring 10 top-20 finishes through 16 races.
His current beef with Caron Hocevar notwithstanding, Stenhouse is maintaining his second-best average finish (19.1) since 2017.
We are just doing a really good job as a team. I’m really happy with where we are at this season. We’ve had two bad races. We got spun two or three times in Mexico City, we were working our way back to a good spot and I felt there was a top-20 finish there.
Pocono can act like a road course at times, depending on the strategies people play. We’ve had decent cars coming to Pocono, so we’re looking to continue that.
Daniel Suarez, -99 points
Near the bottom of the pack in points is Daniel Suarez. The Mexican driver is hot off a dream weekend in Mexico City where he won the Xfinity Series race Saturday and briefly led on Sunday.
But this weekend at Pocono Raceway could stand as a stark reminder of the current state of the No. 99 Trackhouse Racing team.
Only one top five on the year and five finishes worse than 30th have buried Trackhouse’s most tenured driver 28th in points, and a steep 99-point mountain behind the playoffs.
His two teammates have each secured playoff spots, with Ross Chastain winning at Charlotte and Gisbergen winning at Mexico City.
“It puts more pressure as a group to not be the outlier,” Suarez said.
Suarez believes the No. 99 has jumped steps ahead from two months ago. Three straight top 20s is one step toward better points, however, not very helpful in a virtual must-win situation.
“We are definitely better than a couple months ago, as a group,” Suarez said. “Everyone at Trackhouse is better. Right now, we are top 10, top 15. But we haven’t had a car to win races all year.
“The first few months of the season were definitely rough. But the last few weeks, we have found our ground again and are heading in the right direction.”
Rank Driver Wins Playoff Points
1 Kyle Larson 3 23
2 Denny Hamlin 3 18
3 Christopher Bell 3 16
4 William Byron 1 12
5 Ryan Blaney 1 8
6 Joey Logano 1 7
7 Austin Cindric 1 7
8 Josh Berry 1 6
9 S. van Gisbergen 1 6
10 Ross Chastain 1 5
11 Chase Elliott 0 +146
12 Tyler Reddick 0 +123
13 Bubba Wallace 0 +57
14 Chase Briscoe 0 +39
15 Alex Bowman 0 +22
16 Chris Buescher 0 +19
——————————————-
17 Ryan Preece 0 -19
18 M. McDowell 0 -43
19 AJ Allmendinger 0 -45
20 Kyle Busch 0 -50