The First Four Eliminated NASCAR Playoff Drivers Icon Sportswire – Getty Images <\/p>\n
A Spring win at Las Vegas<\/a> locked Josh Berry in early; the Playoffs were always going to be an uphill battle for the Wood Brothers Racing No. 21 team, as they had the worst average finish among playoff drivers and only made it to the round of 16 after the Las Vegas win.<\/p>\n In the Round of 16, Berry finished in last place in each of the three Round of 16 races.<\/p>\n At Darlington, he was involved in a lap one incident with fellow playoff driver Tyler Reddick and returned to the race 120 laps down. At Gateway, Berry was sent around following contact with another playoff driver, this time the No. 9 Hendrick of Chase Elliott. Finally, last night at Bristol, a tire fire 75 laps in filled his cockpit with smoke, forcing him to leave the vehicle and retire from the race. <\/a><\/p>\n One of these DNFs could\u2019ve been redeemed, two if he rebounded with a win, but ultimately bad luck and low playoff stock sent Berry packing. This was Berry\u2019s first NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs.<\/p>\n Austin Dillon locked into the Round of 16 thanks to his win at Richmond<\/a>. His Richmond win was a redemption for his controversial win<\/a>last year, in which he was stripped of his playoff spot<\/a>but allowed to keep the win after crashing Joey Logano and Denny Hamlin for the lead position.<\/p>\n When the playoffs started two weeks later, Dillon was below the cut line for the round of 18 and fell below his qualifying place in each round for an average start of 15.67 and an average finish of 23rd.<\/p>\n This was Dillon\u2019s sixth shot of the playoffs; in six tries, Dillon has been a first-round exit three times and a second-round exit three times.<\/p>\n Shane van Gisbergen’s four wins on the road course were not enough to buffer him into the next round of the NASCAR Playoffs, as the Cup Series rookie continued to struggle on ovals; his average finish for the round was 27.67. The No. 88 Trackhouse Racing team attempted multiple time to keep van Gisbergen in the picture by hopping on alternative pit strategies and hoping for well timed yellow flags, but ultimately could not manufacuter the conditions to help van Gisbergen move to the Round of 12 which includes a road course race.<\/p>\n Story Continues <\/p>\n Now van Gisbergen sets himself up to be a spoiler for the remaining 12 drivers as they head to the Roval in three weeks on the cutoff line. However, with a potential 10 drivers desperate to advance to the next round, van Gisbergen will have a big target on his back, placed by the remaining Playoff drivers.<\/p>\n Alex Bowman was the last driver to qualify for the Round of 16 and the only Hendrick driver without a win in 2025. After a crash at Daytona, 27 laps into the regular season finale, he was left watching from afar, hoping for no new winners to protect his spot. Ryan Blaney delivered for him as he beat out four non-winners for the Daytona victory. Bowman told NBC Sports after the race that he owes Blaney “7 million beers”, which is starting to look like a bad trade.<\/p>\n With finishes of 31st and 26th in the first two rounds, Bristol was Bowman\u2019s chance at a comeback, but his luck had to hinge on another driver\u2019s bad luck. In the final stage of the Bristol Night Race, the Penske No. 2 car of Austin Cindric had a fire in the right front wheel, forcing Cindric down pit row. The No. 2 pit crew was able to get the fire put out before Cindric was forced to leave the cockpit, and he could continue a few laps off the pace. Cindric reentered the race 33rd while Bowman was running second. With the position change, Bowman was one point shy of tying Cindric and held the tiebreaker. The only problem was that Cindric couldn\u2019t lose any more spots without another major problem, as he was laps ahead of 34th position, and one more position for Bowman would be a playoff locking win anyway. Ultimately, Bowman fell to eight and ended his playoff journey 10 points below the cutoff line.<\/p>\n This was Bowman\u2019s seventh playoff appearance, with his best finish being sixth in the round of 8 in 2020. Bowman\u2019s focus will shift to getting a win before the end of the year in the hopes of not repeating his 2023 winless season.<\/p>\n With the points reseeded for the Round of 12, we have four new drivers below the cutoff line, but the margins are paper-thin this time around. Cindric reseeds one point below the cutoff line; his teammate, and the defending champion, Joey Logano, finds himself two points below, same as Trackhouse’s Ross Chastain, and Tyler Reddick, still winless, is four points below the cutoff line, ranked 12th in the playoffs.<\/p>\n Reddick’s teammate Wallace, finds himself just one point above Cindric, behind Elliott, Chase Briscoe, Blaney, Bell, Byron, Larson and Hamlin. With the swing from Hamlin in the lead to his driver Reddick in 12th, being only 30 points.<\/p>\n You Might Also Like<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The First Four Eliminated NASCAR Playoff Drivers Icon Sportswire – Getty Images A Spring win at Las Vegas…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":143720,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[3931,21621,10226,33064,76984,49,48,4387,3932,3484,58721,634,45826,9706,82,9272],"class_list":["post-143719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-alex-bowman","tag-austin-cindric","tag-austin-dillon","tag-bristol","tag-bristol-night-race","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-chase-elliott","tag-denny-hamlin","tag-getty-images","tag-josh-berry","tag-nascar","tag-nascar-cup-series-playoffs","tag-shane-van-gisbergen","tag-sports","tag-tyler-reddick"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143719","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=143719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143719\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} Austin Dillon before qualifying for the Bass Pro Shop Bristol Night Race. Jonathan Bachman – Getty Images <\/p>\n
Shane van Gisbergen during Bristol Night Race Friday practice. Jonathan Bachman – Getty Images <\/p>\n
Alex Bowman at NASCAR Playoffs Media Day. Jared C. Tilton – Getty Images <\/p>\n