Kevin Harvick assesses NASCAR Playoff chances for Bubba Wallace, Ross Chastain
Can Bubba Wallace or Ross Chastain sneak into the NASCAR Playoffs at Darlington on Sunday? Kevin Harvick examined the possibility via the latest episode of Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour.
At the moment, the No. 23 of Wallace is 21 points behind P16, which is the cut-off for the playoffs, while the No. 1 of Chastain is 27 points back. Both will likely need to win the Cook Out Southern 500 to get into the dance, as that’s simply the position they’re in, Harvick believes.
“It’s interesting that we’re here, with the No. 23 and the No. 1. Those guys are on the outside looking in,” Harvick stated. “To me, they’re in a must-win situation. They’re way behind Chris Buescher. The only way that Chris Buescher stumbles is if they have a catastrophic issue, moment or issue. [Martin] Truex is in, Ty Gibbs is basically going to just need a day where he doesn’t have anything torn up. And so to me, those guys are in a must-win situation.
“I don’t know, I think that obviously they could do it, but I don’t — I don’t know that that they have, you know, the potential, with the scenario that they’re in, at the track that they’re going to, with those two cars to go to Victory Lane.”
Continuing, Harvick’s co-host, Mamba Smith, recognized how difficult the position Wallace and Chastain find themselves in is, and why it might actually be easier for them to be in a must-win situation at Daytona instead of Darlington.
“This is not a place where you want to have to win,” Smith added. “I think, I would go off and say that I would rather have to win at Daytona, because anything can happen at Darlington, in the 500 mile race, when you have to be great, and it’s — I mean, August. It’s the hottest it’s been all year. So like, everything is just not ideal, conducive for like, having to get it done.
“So you’ve got to dig deep, and you’ve got to bring your best stuff, and I would push every limit of the rule book to make sure that my car has every opportunity to win this race.”
At the least, Harvick believes 23XI Racing and Trackhouse Racing will have Wallace and Chastain’s rides ready to roll on Sunday, giving them every possible advantage to get into the playoffs.
“Those cars will be, they’ll be championship prepared cars,” Harvick delineated. “It’ll be — everything on it’ll be — not that they don’t push it, but if you have something that you’ve been saving, that you might think is iffy, you put it on right now, on the No. 23 and the No. 1 car, and anybody else who has hasn’t won a race, you know, will be in that, that scenario.
“But it’s just a super difficult racetrack. It’s going to be hot, like you say, and it’s a racetrack that can just reach out and bite you at any moment. Make a mistake, and it’s so simple to have something go wrong.”
Alas, the degree of difficulty will be high, but Kevin Harvick isn’t putting the playoffs out of reach for Bubba Wallace or Ross Chastain. We’ll see if one of them, or even a different driver outside the playoffs at the moment, can race their way into the dance on Sunday.