{"id":116062,"date":"2025-09-03T06:21:14","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T06:21:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/116062\/"},"modified":"2025-09-03T06:21:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T06:21:14","slug":"dale-earnhardt-jr-names-nascar-playoff-drivers-in-trouble-ones-to-watch-after-darlington","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/116062\/","title":{"rendered":"Dale Earnhardt Jr. names NASCAR playoff drivers in trouble, ones to watch after Darlington"},"content":{"rendered":"

Coming off the first NASCAR<\/a> Cup Series playoff race of the season, Dale Earnhardt Jr. is already crunching the numbers. Who will make it to the Round of 12?<\/p>\n

The former racing star turned team owner and analyst opened up on the topic, highlighting two drivers that are in a less than ideal situation right now. Neither should come as a surprise.<\/p>\n

\u201cJosh Berry is in a tough spot,\u201d Earnhardt said on the Dale Jr. Download<\/a>. \u201cWrecked on the first lap of the race, car bottomed out really bad. Did you see that? Wasn\u2019t that weird? Well, that cost him a great finish. But dude, I mean when I look at this, nobody\u2019s in big trouble.<\/p>\n

\u201cBerry, (Alex) Bowman at -19. You can\u2019t have another bad race, then it\u2019s over. But I think if you\u2019re Bowman or Berry and you come out of St. Louis at -10 or better, how are you feeling? All you\u2019re trying to do is give yourself a shot. I don\u2019t see how Bowman or Berry looking at \u2026 SVG \u2026 looking at the rest of these guys, man. You\u2019re not talking about making gains on the field, you\u2019re talking about making gains on the top 12.\u201d<\/p>\n

One thing that was interesting was that one driver currently below the playoff cut line is almost a sure thing to end up on the right side of the line when it comes down to the Round of 12, Earnhardt said. That\u2019s Joey Logano.<\/p>\n

Earnhardt and his co-host agreed Logano is likely to advance past this round. \u201cJoey\u2019s taking a spot,\u201d Earnhardt said.<\/p>\n

For the drivers below the current playoff cut line, Earnhardt noted they might need some help. The drivers in front of them might have to trip up to open a window.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese guys are going to have to have problems,\u201d Earnhardt said. \u201cBut you have, basically, (Ross) Chastain at +21 is pretty comfortable. From eighth on forward I think, barring any massive issue, they\u2019re cruising through this round.\u201d<\/p>\n

So who might end up below the playoff cut line if one or two of the drivers currently below fight their way up? Earnhardt and his co-host disagreed on whether Austtin Cindric fits the bill.<\/p>\n

\u201cCindric, I think (Christopher) Bell\u2018s good enough at +11 to not have to be concerned,\u201d Earhnhardt said. \u201cChase Elliott\u2018s consistent enough at +9. So I mean Cindric and SVG, who we all were talking about might miss the next round, those are the only two guys that I see any of these four down here \u2014 Logano, (Austin) Dillon, Bowman, Berry \u2014 I only see two guys, two spots available.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earnhardt defended the idea that Cindric might slip up, which was something his co-host didn\u2019t see happening. He explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cCindric could have a rough day,\u201d Earnhardt said. \u201cHe shows up sometimes and will run 12th, he\u2019ll show up some other times and run 28th. I just haven\u2019t seen enough over the course of the last several years to really know Cindric\u2019s going to be a lock.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat if Logano out-pointed Cindric and then someone else out-pointed SVG? It\u2019s only 15 (points). Can Logano out-point Cindric, 15 points in the next two weeks?\u201d<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll see. But there is certainly no shortage of interesting storylines at play.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Coming off the first NASCAR Cup Series playoff race of the season, Dale Earnhardt Jr. is already crunching…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19253,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-116062","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nascar","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116062\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}