A mere 25 races ago, William Byron snuck by a crash on the final lap of the Daytona 500 to claim his second straight win in the Great American Race.
Since then, 13 other drivers claimed victories at a myriad of facilities.
Denny Hamlin found wins at Martinsville, Darlington, Michigan, and Dover. Shane van Gisbergen matched Hamlin’s 2025 win total at Mexico City, Chicago, Sonoma, and Watkins Glen.
Christopher Bell snagged victories at Atlanta, COTA, and Phoenix while Kyle Larson pulled away at Homestead, Bristol, and Kansas. William Byron tacked on another win at Iowa to notch the regular season title.
Just four multi-win drivers this season while Josh Berry won at Vegas, Austin Cindric broke through at Talladega, Joey Logano snuck past the field at Texas, Ross Chastain triumphed in the World 600, Ryan Blaney strutted his stuff at Nashville, Chase Briscoe rode on fumes to the finish at Pocono, Chase Elliott survived Atlanta, Bubba Wallace kissed the bricks at Indy, and just last week, Austin Dillon gave us a sequel that was better than the original by landing a playoff spot with a Richmond victory.
With just one race remaining before the playoffs begin, the 22 winless full-time stars of the NASCAR Cup Series possess one final opportunity to grab a trophy and a golden ticket to the postseason.
It sounds simple enough until you realize that this cutoff race takes place at Daytona International Speedway under the lights.
A 400-mile traffic jam where drivers run bumper-to-bumper remains an amazing spectacle, but one tire failure, one mistimed block, or one bobble could lead to half of the field having their day ended.
Over 160 laps, fans will also be keeping up with the points battle as a new winner threatens the playoff hopes of Alex Bowman and to a lesser extent, Tyler Reddick.
Bowman sits a comfortable 60 points ahead of Chris Buescher, but he’s on the bubble, meaning if a new winner comes out of the Coke Zero Sugar 400, Bowman’s playoff hopes reside in the failures of Reddick.
Reddick sits 29 points ahead of Bowman, which is a tough mountain to climb for the 48 team. Reddick kept his team in the top-10 in points all season long and looks to mirror his second-place finish from the Daytona 500 to finally punch his ticket to the postseason.
The chance to stake your claim at history is here. What will you do? Will you be the first to the checkers or the first on the wrecker?
Last Week at Richmond…
In its lone date of the year, Richmond Raceway put on a show as tire wear became the name of the game. While not as egregious as the wear seen in the 2024 Bristol spring race, the Goodyear Eagles fitted for the race allowed drivers to determine their result more than ever as making it to the next pit stop became the top priority.
In the end, Austin Dillon came through in stage 3 when Michael McDowell and Bubba Wallace made contact on a restart, and he pulled away from Ryan Blaney later in the race to hold on for his first win of the season, going back-to-back at the Action Track to land a playoff spot.
For a more detailed sequence of events from last week’s Cook Out 400, check out our venerable Joe Sell’s recap.
This Week in NASCAR
The sport’s sanctioning body made a big announcement on Monday when they introduced O’Reilly Auto Parts as the new title sponsor for what is now known as the NASCAR Xfinity Series, starting in 2026.
Xfinity remains a premier partner of the NASCAR Cup Series and a sponsor on 23XI Racing’s vehicles, but their 11-year relationship with NASCAR’s second-tier national series ends at Phoenix this fall.
Early on Tuesday, major news broke out of Ohio as ThorSport announced Matt Crafton’s retirement at the end of the 2025 season.
A three-time Truck Series champion (2013, 2014, 2019) and a 15-time race winner, the 49-year-old racer out of Tulare, CA decided to hang it up after a 25-year career and pass the No. 88 truck to reigning series champion and teammate Ty Majeski for next season.
Later in the week, NASCAR released the schedule for all three national series with some major inclusions as well as major exclusions. Both Mexico City and Chicago street race lost their dates to the new San Diego street race on the Coronado Naval Base and Chicagoland, respectively.
Interestingly, NASCAR Executive Vice President and Chief Venue & Racing Innovations Officer Ben Kennedy let the world know that the playoff designations made in the schedule are to be taken with a grain of salt as the points format for next year has not been set to this point.
In more dour news, former Charlotte Motor Speedway track president H.A. “Humpy” Wheeler passed away on Thursday at the age of 86. Here is a statement from the track’s social media account:
As has been the case for much of the year, Connor Zilisch generated headlines this week as rumors swirled about whether he’d be cleared for Friday night’s Xfinity Series race, but at 11AM Eastern time on Thursday., Zilisch’s doctor gave young driver the go-ahead to race at Daytona.
Zilisch dropped to the rear and coasted around until a caution allowed him to hop out, handing the proverbial keys to NASCAR veteran Parker Kligerman.
Kligerman piloted the car through the chaos and carnage to earn Car 88 its eighth win of 2025 with Zilisch getting credited with the victory to give him wins in five of the last six Xfinity Series events.
In the NASCAR Cup Series, qualifying was struck down by lightning in the area, handing the pole to Ryan Blaney, his second of the season. For a full lineup, click here.
The Race
Tonight’s Coke Zero Sugar 400 will be broadcast on NBC with Leigh Diffey, Steve Letarte, and Jeff Burton in the booth.
The 400 in the race title stands for the amount of miles the race will run for, and at 2.5 miles in length, today’s race will run for 160 laps split into three stages ending on the following laps: 35-95-160.
As for the average Daytona summer race, it looks something like this: 7 cautions for 33 caution laps, 31 lead changes, eight (8!!!!) instances of overtime in the last 10 events*, and a lap of final caution flying around lap 156 or with five (5) laps remaining.
(*The only races where overtime didn’t occur were the 2019 running, which ended under a rain delay, and the 2022 running where rain took out most of the field prior to Austin Dillon’s victory.)
A series of announcements greeted the NASCAR garage on Saturday as Kaulig Racing announced that they’ll be opening up a Craftsman Truck Series team that plans to field five trucks next season for the RAM brand. At this time, no drivers have been linked to the team’s Truck operation.
Not only that, iRacing unveiled the cover of their new NASCAR title, NASCAR 25, which is due to release for the XBox Series consoles as well as the PlayStation 5 on October 14.
To wrap up a busy Saturday afternoon, Trackhouse Racing officially announced that Connor Zilisch would join the Cup Series with them full-time for 2026 and beyond. It is unknown at this time if Zilisch will retain the team and number carried by Daniel Suárez since he joined the team in 2021.
Writer’s Pick
Last week, I went with Denny Hamlin to win the Cook Out 400, but after getting collected in a crash near the end of stage 2, the Virginia native was only able to rebound for a 10th-place result at Richmond.
This week, I employed my very unscientific method of picking my winner from the lucky numbers from a fortune cookie, which yielded the numbers 2, 15, 20, 21, 33, and 34.
As such, I decided to select Todd Gilliland.
The Front Row Motorsports team have been mired in the midpack for much of the year after having a strong 2024, so they’re still seeking their first victory since Indianapolis in 2023.
In addition, Gilliland is their longest-tenured driver with a defined history of success and strength at this style of race track, having won a stage and led the most laps at the spring Atlanta race last season.
With FRM in the headlines more for their court case against NASCAR than getting wins, a Todd Gilliland victory would elevate them into the postseason after a trying 2025 campaign.
(Top Photo Credit: Brian Lawdermilk/Getty Images)
pitboxpress.com 