Where the NASCAR playoff picture stands with five regular season races to go

Joey Logano had all the joy that comes with winning a NASCAR Cup Series race on Sunday night at North Wilkesboro Speedway, but what he didn’t have was relief.

The three-time series champion is one step closer to making the Chase, with his big night propelling him two spots up in the standings to 15th position and has a 49-point gap to the first driver out of a Chase spot, Erik Jones, who sits in 17th place. Jones was the biggest loser on the other side of Logano’s fortune because he dropped two spots in the standings.

“We’re not in a safe place yet,” Logano acknowledged. “But definitely a huge points day for us to get on the other side of that cut line.”

Logano earned 73 points with the race win (55 points), finishing in third place in the first stage (eight points), and a win in the second stage (10 points). It was three points shy of a perfect race, but Logano will take what he can get as he fights to make the postseason.

He has been far from being on solid ground all season, and not since 2017, the year before he won his first title, has Logano failed to make the postseason. There is still plenty of racing left to go with five weeks before the Chase field is solidified. Denny Hamlin, Tyler Reddick, and Ryan Blaney, who sit first through third in points, respectively, are the only drivers officially locked in.

Aside from tracking Logano’s journey to potentially making the Chase, here are four other names that are worth watching.

James Gilbert/Getty Images

Shane van Gisbergen

One spot ahead of Logano in points is the Trackhouse Racing driver. How unexpected is that to read? But van Gisbergen has been putting together a solid sophomore season that includes two race wins to help his cause toward making the Chase. And that includes a career night at North Wilkesboro as far as his oval performances are concerned, with 47 points earned, 48 laps led, and a fifth-place finish.

“It was a good points race,” said van Gisbergen, “which is what we really needed.”

van Gisbergen is looking like he will be the only Trackhouse driver to make the postseason. Another box that likely wasn’t on the bingo card. But neither, for some, was that van Gisbergen would make the Chase at all, at least if he didn’t win all four road course races. Here he is, though, proving that he has improved enough on all racetracks to give himself a chance to make the Chase, and do so having only won two of the four road races.

The gap between van Gisbergen in 14th place in points and Jones in 17th place is 54 points.

David Jensen/Getty Images)

Erik Jones

Now the first guy on the outside looking in, Jones is far from out of it at 33 points behind Austin Cindric, who sits 16th in points. It has been a hot summer for him and his Legacy Motor Club team to even be in this position, putting together a 12.9 average finish in the last nine races, including reeling off three top-five finishes. Consider how the year started when Jones was 25th in points after the weekend at Watkins Glen.

Jones has made the postseason before, so this battle is not new to him. However, it is the first time that Legacy Motor Club (or its former iteration of Petty GMS Racing) has been in the conversation to make the Chase at this point in the season, at least on merit and not the chance of winning their way in under the previous format. No matter how the postseason would go if he were to get there, Legacy and Jones just getting there would be a big feather in the cap and proof of having taken steps forward.

Sean Gardner/Getty Images

Ryan Preece and Brad Keselowski

It’s a two-for-one here with the RFK Racing teammates, but it’s fitting considering how things have fallen away from them in almost the exact same way. Preece is 18th in the standings and 48 points behind Cindric, while Keselowski is 19th in the standings and 58 points behind Cindric.

Preece sat as high as 12th in points earlier this season and his No. 60 team appeared solid enough to stay well within the Chase grid. But since late April, they have earned only two top-10 finishes and three DNFs.

“The month of May and June really just killed us,” Preece said. “It put us in a bit of a hole, and we’ve been trying to dig ourselves out ever since. When I look at these final five races, I feel like there is a big opportunity to go out and run really well and get stage points and do all those things. We’re working as a group to find that little bit of magic where we can contend for wins and a lot of stage points, because that’s ultimately what it’s going to take from here on out.

“I don’t see Joey [Logano], and I don’t see SVG [Shane van Gisbergen] and them having terrible days right now. I think there is momentum. So, we’re going to have to go out and show them how bad we want to be there, and I know myself, Derrick [Finley] and our 60 group, we’re willing to do what it takes to make sure we can be in the (Chase).”

Keselowski, meanwhile, has also gone from solidly inside the top 10 in points to fighting for all he’s worth to make the Chase. Keselowski has had one top-10 since late April and three DNFs.

RFK Racing would love to go back to the spring. After all, leaving Kansas Speedway (April 19), their drivers sat ninth (Keselowski), 11th (Chris Buescher), and 13th (Preece) in points. Now they face the possibility of having only one driver championship-eligible, with Buescher sitting ninth in points.

“We’re going to have to earn it,” Keselowski said about the postseason. “We had a really difficult two-month stretch, where we dropped from in the top 10 in points to 19th, and we need to rebound from that. Days like today give us hope that we can do that.”

Four of the final five races in the stretch to the Chase are the same from one year ago. The change was New Hampshire moving into the grouping while Watkins Glen moved out.