{"id":92263,"date":"2023-08-31T14:20:05","date_gmt":"2023-08-31T21:20:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=92263"},"modified":"2023-08-31T14:20:05","modified_gmt":"2023-08-31T21:20:05","slug":"2023-nascar-cup-series-playoff-drivers-set","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/2023-nascar-cup-series-playoff-drivers-set\/","title":{"rendered":"2023 NASCAR Cup Series Playoff Drivers Set"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"NASCAR<\/a>
NASCAR Cup Series driver Bubba Wallace speaks with the media during the NASCAR Cup Series Playoff Media Day at Charlotte Convention Center on August 31, 2023 in Charlotte, North Carolina. (Photo by Jared C. Tilton\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It\u2019s time! For 16 drivers, only one thing matters for the next ten events, and that is the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series Championship.<\/p>\n

Last weekend, the regular season completed with 23XI Racing\u2019s Bubba Wallace securing the last coveted spot in the Cup Series playoffs. Now, the intensity is set on 1,000 as they chase the ultimate prize come Championship Weekend at Phoenix Raceway in November.<\/p>\n

Martin Truex Jr. was the regular season champion on the strength of three wins and several consistent finishes. However, he sits second in the standings entering the opening playoff race this weekend at Darlington Raceway behind William Byron, who had five victories.<\/p>\n

Even though he\u2019s not the number one seed, Truex knows momentum is on his side right now.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, at the beginning of the year, you set out to be the best,\u201d Truex said. \u201cThe regular-season championship\u2019s a big deal. The 15 bonus points that come along with it are very important right now so I\u2019m just really proud of my team and their hard work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last season, Truex\u2019s Joe Gibbs Racing #19 missed the playoffs. This year, they\u2019re the regular-season champion. It\u2019s a true testament to how much effort Martin and his team put into 2023 to turn things around.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis wasn\u2019t just the 19 team,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was JGR (Joe Gibbs Racing), TRD (Toyota Racing Development) and Toyota as a whole. We\u2019ve won a lot more races this year and had a lot more speed across the board with all of our cars. For me, to have my guys really buckled down and found a lot things that I need. The fact that they found stuff that stuck out that we could work on for me has been a huge help.\u201d<\/p>\n

Truex isn\u2019t a very outwardly expressive but you the return of joy was apparent in his demeanor this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just fun to go to the track and know this team is going to give me something I can go out and win with almost every single weekend,\u201d he said. \u201cWe didn\u2019t have that last year but it\u2019s a lot of fun to race that way and we\u2019ve got it right now. Hopefully we can have it for ten more weeks and go out on top.\u201d<\/p>\n

Heading into Darlington, everyone will be chasing Hendrick Motorsports driver William Byron who led the series with five victories on a multitude of tracks. From road courses, to mile-and-a-half\u2019s and even short tracks, is Byron surprised by his team\u2019s success in 2023?<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we knew that we could win and be a strong as we\u2019ve been,\u201d Byron said. \u201cWe knew we were capable. Last year was tough with the new car. We hit the ground running and had some good results early but then it seemed like the car evolved and we struggled to adapt. Then, in the fall, started to get some speed back.\u201d<\/p>\n

That speed led to Byron and his team being strong throughout the 2023 NASCAR regular season.<\/p>\n

\u201cLate last year, we saw a lot of potential,\u201d he said. \u201cI think, the start of this year, it started to roll really smooth and then we just got into a rhythm.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even though he\u2019s only secured one win over the last five weeks, Byron still feels like he has a strong chance to chase his first career NASCAR Cup Series title.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had a tough four or so races,\u201d he said. \u201cHowever, we\u2019ve had speed during that time but that\u2019s part of the ebbs and flows of the season. You want to be set on kill for 38 weeks but it\u2019s really hard to be good every single week. Now, we\u2019re focused on the playoffs.\u201d<\/p>\n

As good as Truex has been, and Byron with the most wins in the series this season, the driver heading into NASCAR\u2019s post-season with the most momentum has to be Chris Buescher.<\/p>\n

Buescher has won three of the last five races on the series and taken RFK Racing from a top 15 team, to a top 10 team and now a winner on a consistent basis, including last weekend at Daytona.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is just unbelievable at this point,\u201d Buescher said. \u201cAfter our second win that came at Michigan, we talked about hitting our momentum at the right time. Now, to win at Daytona, to close out the regular season this way, this is a big moment for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, Buescher\u2019s focus turns to the playoffs and several tracks that fit his driving style and what RFK has been building towards.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got some really fun race tracks coming up for us,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re places we\u2019ve been really excited about even before getting the win on Saturday night. I\u2019m certainly pumped up for where we\u2019re at as an organization with the momentum we\u2019ve had, the consistency and the flexibility at all different styles of race tracks. Safe to say we\u2019re going to be a contender as we head into the playoffs.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the wins that he\u2019s been able to secure this season, does Buescher feel he\u2019s one of the favorites to win the title in 2023?<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019re a contender,\u201d he said. \u201cWe still have work to do. I don\u2019t think we\u2019re under the illusion that the title has to go through us and us alone. We\u2019ve got tracks we still need to be better at and we\u2019ve still got work to do as a team to be in the hunt. I do feel confident about our ability to drive deep through the playoffs and be a contender but with the caliber of teams, I can\u2019t say we\u2019re the favorite.\u201d<\/p>\n

Probably the most relieved driver to be in the playoffs after Saturday night was Bubba Wallace. While the driver from 23XI Racing was in the last spot on points heading into the race on Saturday at Daytona, he was by no means safe.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe survived,\u201d Wallace said. \u201cWe saw the 54 (Ty Gibbs, his closest points challenger) and a lot of cars get taken out. We knew kind of where we were at but we just didn\u2019t need a new winner.\u201d<\/p>\n

The last few laps had to be nerve-racking for Wallace.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith about ten to go, I was like, oh, there\u2019s a new winner,\u201d he said. \u201cThen, with eight-to-go, I was like, all right, let\u2019s go. No new winners so it was an emotional roller coaster the last few laps.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the end, Wallace made his way in and qualified for the playoffs for the first time in his career.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m mentally drained by all of this,\u201d he said. \u201cThis was probably the hardest week I\u2019ve had in a long time. I just wanted to stay hyper-focused. I was so stressed out to the max. We\u2019ve put so much into getting here. We bust our ass so much to get here and it\u2019s finally starting to pay off.\u201d<\/p>\n

In total, ten different organizations are represented in this year\u2019s playoff. Led by Joe Gibbs Racing\u2019s three entries (Truex, Denny Hamlin and Christopher Bell), Hendrick Motorsports has two (Byron and Kyle Larson), RFK has two (Buescher and Brad Keselowski), 23XI has two (Tyler Reddick and Wallace), and Team Penske has two (Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney).<\/p>\n

Richard Childress Racing (Kyle Busch), Trackhouse Racing (Ross Chastain), Front Row Motorsports (Michael McDowell), JTG Daugherty Racing (Ricky Stenhouse Jr.) and Stewart-Haas Racing (Kevin Harvick) each have one driver a piece.<\/p>\n

Speaking of Harvick, the 2014 Cup Series Champion is making his final run at his second title this season before changing his racing suit for a business suit and microphone as he heads to the FOX broadcasting booth next season.<\/p>\n

Harvick wants to go out on top as a driver but has just been blown away by the support he\u2019s received during his last year behind the wheel.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, when you look out and see the \u20184Ever\u2019 signs, you experience the things that each track on the tour has done and you listen to the fans, you get a great idea of how important coming back and doing this last year has meant,\u201d Harvick said. \u201cI may have thought it was silly when it all started but now I don\u2019t have to worry about what people think. I\u2019ve gotten to listen and realize that we\u2019ve had a great impact on the sport and the fans appreciate our effort.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NASCAR’s regular season came to a breathtaking conclusion this past week and weekend as 16 drivers move on to the playoffs.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":91,"featured_media":92264,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3424,3470,5029],"tags":[9249,7659,127,4437],"class_list":["post-92263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","category-news","category-racing","tag-2023-nascar-cup-series","tag-bubba-wallace","tag-nascar","tag-nascar-cup-series"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/GettyImages-1651025932-min-scaled.webp","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-o07","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/91"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92263"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92263\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":92265,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92263\/revisions\/92265"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}