Two playoff spots up for grabs in NASCAR Xfinity regular-season finale
NASCAR Xfinity Series drivers will get their last chance to qualify for a seven-race playoff in Friday night‘s Food City 300 at Bristol Motor Speedway (7:30 p.m. ET on USA, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Ten drivers already have advanced to the postseason. Sam Mayer and Riley Herbst clinched spots on points last Saturday at Kansas Speedway. After winning an appeal of the L2 penalty imposed after his Daytona victory, Jeremy Clements is back in the playoffs with a guaranteed spot.
That leaves defending series champion Daniel Hemric, his Kaulig Racing teammate Landon Cassill, Ryan Sieg and Sheldon Creed in the thick of the battle for the final two berths. Hemric is in the best position, 37 points above the cut line. Cassill is 12th in the standings, 19 points ahead of Sieg in 13th.
MORE: Full Xfinity Series standings
Creed is 32 points behind Cassill and in need of help to claim a playoff spot. Of course, any of those four drivers could earn a spot with a victory, as could Brandon Brown, Anthony Alfredo, Myatt Snider or Jeb Burton.
At the top of the standings, defending race winner AJ Allmendinger can clinch the Regular Season Championship — and the 15 Playoff points that go with it — by scoring 23 points or more on Friday, the equivalent of a 14th-place finish if he scores no stage points.
But Allmendinger knows there are no guarantees.
“With Bristol, you just never know,” he said. “It‘s all situational. You could easily get caught up in someone else‘s mess early in the race, and you are out of it. Or it could come down to another finish like we had last year where we are all battling in the final laps.
“My team knows that, if we‘re in that situation racing for a win at Bristol and a Regular Season Championship, I‘m going to do whatever it takes and put it all on the line to get the job done.”
