With Sunday’s Cup race at Chicagoland Speedway (3 p.m. ET on NBCSN), there are only 10 races left in the regular season.
That means time is running out for drivers outside the top 16 in the standings to either win or accumulate enough points to qualify for the playoffs.
On NASCAR America, Parker Kligerman and AJ Allmendinger looked at the eight drivers who are hovering around the bubble in the playoff standings and how they’ve faired on 1.5-mile tracks this year in terms of average finish and points.
“If you look at the average finish sometimes that doesn’t tell the whole story, especially now with stage racing” Allmendinger said. “You can run fifth all day and the next thing you know (on the) last restart get wrecked and you have a 37th-place finish.”
Allmendinger highlighted Kyle Larson (15th) and Ryan Newman (16th) in the standings.
Larson has an average finish of 20.8 on 1.5-mile tracks and 116 points. Newman has an average finish of 17.4, but has just 103 points.
“I wouldn’t bet on that, Ryan Newman is one point to the good, they’ve really struggled,” Allmendinger said. “But if you look at his teammate, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., that’s been on one of his strongest race tracks, mile-and-a-halfs.”
Despite being 20th in the standings, Stenhouse has an average finish of 11.2 and 161 points on those type of tracks.
Watch the above video for more.