By David Morgan, Associate Editor
BRISTOL, Tenn. – Down, but not out.
When the checkered flag falls on Saturday night’s Bass Pro Shops Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway, the field for the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs will be cut by four to the 12 remaining drivers that will live to fight another day in pursuit of the championship.
Currently, the four drivers that find themselves on the outside looking in are Austin Dillon, Shane van Gisbergen, Alex Bowman, and Josh Berry.
Dillon and van Gisbergen are still mathematically alive in the battle to make it to the next round, sitting 11 and 15 points back, respectively. It will be an uphill battle to overcome those deficits, but it’s certainly not out of the realm of possibility.
As recent memory has shown, drivers have been able to race their way into the next round in an elimination race with deficits as big as those two, including Bubba Wallace in 2022 (came in 19 markers back), William Byron in 2021 (made up an 18-point deficit), and Chase Elliott in 2019, where he overcame a 22-point gap.
Of the two, Dillon would likely have the better odds of racing in, having had some success on the concrete half-mile oval, scoring one top-five and four top-10 finishes during his career at Bristol.
Dillon most recently finished 10th in the 2025 Bristol spring race, so if he and the team can replicate that on Saturday night, they have a chance.
However, Dillon will have some work to do on Saturday night to put himself in a position to challenge after qualifying in 23rd place.
“The qualifying part is what sucks,” said Dillon. “We’re going to have to figure out how a way to get some track position to try and grab stage points. But I’m not mad at the car. I think the car’s decent. I think we have something to race with. We were a bit free, like I said, all practice, but it shouldn’t be bad in the race.
“We were pushing to get more is where we were, but I thought we were a top 10 car on average there in pace, just qualifying is what it was.”
Dillon added that the team will regroup overnight and get ready for the fight to come on Saturday night.
“I think now we just got to go reset,” said Dillon. “We really wanted to qualify well to keep pressure on ’em and instead they’ve qualified well, so we got to figure out a way to get ourselves up there and keep pressure on, but anything can happen in this race.
“We just got to stay steady, keep working. I mean, I think we have a car that’s competitive, we’ll just have to get in the race and battle.”
“Have a Proper Crack at It”
As for van Gisbergen, the points buffer he built coming into the Playoffs courtesy of his four road course wins was eviscerated in short order with finishes of 32nd and 25th in the first two races of the postseason, leaving him behind the eight-ball at Bristol.
In his first Cup start at Bristol in the spring, van Gisbergen left with a dismal 38th place finish after crash on Lap 179 led to suspension damage and an eventual DNF. Even back in the Xfinity Series, he only managed an 18th place result, so he’ll certainly have his work cut out for himself to be able to transfer through to the next round.
To make matters worse, he will start last among the Playoff drivers not yet locked in, qualifying all the way back in 28th place.
“I think it’s going to be an uphill battle for sure,” said van Gisbergen. “But yeah, I feel like we’re all positive about it and more confident I guess the last couple of months. So yeah, we certainly haven’t given up on trying to get through and going to have a proper crack at it.”
Regardless of whether he makes it through or not, van Gisbergen explained that while they have the road courses nailed, it’s still a growing process for the team on the ovals, which has only grown his and the team’s confidence in recent months and into the Playoffs.
“I think it’s been awesome. To win the races we have and then to show the improvement that we have over the last few months,” van Gisbergen said of his first full-time season in Cup.
“We started well below average and it’s been a steady progression and yeah, I think we can be proud of that. We obviously didn’t expect to set the world on fire on ovals, but I think we’ve done pretty well the last while getting better and faster.”
Win or Go Home
Meanwhile, the goal on Saturday night for Bowman and Berry is simple: win or go home.
Both drivers have had abysmal starts to the Playoffs, with Bowman not finishing any higher than 26th and back-to-back crashes leaving Berry with finishes of 38th and 36th. As a result, the two drivers are 35 and 45 points back, respectively, meaning its win or bust on Saturday night.
Bowman lamented the drop off in performance for the No. 48 team leading into and starting the Playoffs, but is holding out hope that they will be able to parlay the speed they have shown recently at Bristol into a good night in the win department when it matters most.
After starting on pole the last two races at Bristol, Bowman has been one of the lone drivers to challenge Kyle Larson’s dominance, finishing ninth after leading 34 laps last fall and retiring with an engine issue in the spring after leading 39 laps.
When the green flag drops on Saturday night, he will start from 15th place.
“It’s certainly frustrating, right? We had a really good summer and the switch turned off for us for sure. So honestly, it’s just, it’s kind of mortifying how bad we’ve been. It’s embarrassing,” said Bowman.
“It’s not from a lack of effort. Everybody’s working so hard at HMS and our whole team is, right? We’ve just not put days together we need to. So yeah, working hard to turn that around this weekend.”
Bowman added that coming into Bristol in a must-win position has kind of taken the pressure off for him and the team, knowing it’s win or go home.
“We’re in such a tough spot. It’s almost less stressful, right? It’s not like we’re really close to the cut line and you’re trying to make sure you don’t make any mistakes. It’s like we got to make something happen,” said Bowman.
“So yeah, mentally going through these last couple of weeks has not been a fun time for me. But mentally it’s kind of not been a fun time for me the last couple of years. So just trying to run the best we can this weekend and be as prepared as I can be, go out there and do my job.”
Berry led 25 laps en route to a 12th place finish in his Bristol Cup debut in the spring of 2024, which he repeated this past spring with another 12th place finish.
As he attempts to pull off the Hail Mary on Saturday night, Berry noted that it’s been a disappointing start to the postseason in his first season with the No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing team, but explained that there are still positives to take from it.
“It’s been disappointing to not get the results, but I feel like we’ve performed fairly well,” said Berry.
“We went to Darlington and qualified third and felt like we had a good car there. We bottomed out and wrecked on the first lap and then last week I felt like, again, we qualified 12th and felt like we had a solid car. We got into it with the 9 and I felt like each one of those could have been solid top 10s, which really would have been all we needed to be in a much better spot this weekend, so I’m frustrated with the results but I think the performance has been there.
“I think we’ve done a good job. There’s always room for improvement, but there are still positives to take out of it.”
As for their chances to win out and Bristol and propel themselves into the next round, Berry explained that if they put themselves in position to capitalize, anything is possible. He will start from 10th place.
“Every week we come out here and try to win. We try to do the best job we can every time we’re on the racetrack and that’s gonna be the same [Saturday],” said Berry.
“We just need to be able to move forward through the race and execute, have good pit stops and just see what happens.”
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