At times like this, all you can do is look and feel around. The center console, under the driver’s seat, maybe between the seat and the door?
Somehow or other, against all odds (or so we thought), NASCAR has lost its bubble.
Bubbles grow and bubbles shrink. Sometimes they pop.
But here’s some good news: They can reappear.
If the Cup Series’ playoff bubble — down there in and around 16th place — disappeared so quickly, it stands to reason it can reverse course just as quickly and provide a little drama over these final two weeks of the regular season.
Right?
Right! And yes, an explanation is coming.
We’ll also talk a little Joey Logano, even some Austin Cindric and Josh Berry, and how the Ford Motor Company, in the midst of our nation’s ongoing 250th anniversary celebration, has unfurled its flag and rushed back into battle.
All that, and a geography lesson courtesy of Kyle Larson, as we climb the gearbox …
First Gear: NASCAR Chase bubble goes splat at Richmond
And just like that, the bubble became a gulf. The distance between 16th and 17th place went from 29 to 50 points after Saturday night in Richmond.
Ryan Preece, in the No. 60 Ford, is still on the outside looking, back there in 17th place, one spot outside the cutoff for the postseason championship chase, which begins after two more regular-season races — at New Hampshire and Daytona.
Yes, Daytona, which tells us anything is still kinda-sorta possible.
But there’s a new defender sitting there in 16th — Shane van Gisbergen, who dropped a spot from 15th, which is now occupied by Austin Cindric, who turned heads with a third-place run at Richmond. Turned heads? Yeah, that happens when you post your first top-10 in … let’s see, I’ve got it here somewhere … oh my, his first top-10 since mid-May!
Fifty points is a big lift for Preece, but as we’ve seen, all it takes is one set of dominoes to fall a certain way and that playoff bubble could return. Also, you have to think Preece would rather be chasing SVG than Cindric, especially on ovals and especially due to those Fords suddenly finding a little something.
Second Gear: Penske Fords slowing Toyota’s roll
That’s right, Ford is back in gear. At least for now.
It’s probably more accurate to say Roger Penske’s Fords are back. It’s highlighted by Logano’s recent rejuvenation, of course. But along with his win and Cindric’s third at Richmond, Ryan Blaney won the pole and led a bunch of laps before setting for a ho-hum 13th.
And then there’s Josh Berry, in the No. 21 Wood Brothers Ford that’s more or less a fourth Penske car. After six months with just two top-10s and nothing better than a ninth, Berry has finished seventh, fourth and now eighth in the past three races.
That’s not the worst way to update the resumé, by the way. Remember, the keys to that No. 21 car come with short lease terms. You either use the opportunity as a launchpad or get out of the way for the next potential up-and-comer, which is why Berry is giving up the seat next season to Jesse Love.
Unfortunately for Berry, however, the 2027 roster seems to be buttoned up for the most part.
As for the rest of those Ford pilots — or at least the Penske crew — the 2026 dynamic has changed. The upcoming championship run no longer feels like an intramural scrum among the Joe Gibbs Racing quartet.
Third Gear: Kyle Larson only knows one Knoxville
Around this time every year, the folks who follow auto racing, beyond the bigger headlines, get a geography lesson.
As it turns out, there’s more than one Knoxville.
Kyle Larson was the catalyst behind this latest reminder that there’s a Knoxville in the middle of Iowa, some 800 miles northwest of the Knoxville in Tennessee that becomes familiar to all during college football season.
Iowa’s Knoxville annually hosts the Knoxville Nationals, which remains the High Holy Days of sprint-car racing. Kyle is a big fan of racing those high-powered speedsters on the dirt, as you probably know. He signed up for yet another Knoxville run this year, knowing he’d probably miss the main event since it overlapped with his day job, which this past week was a night job, at Richmond.
But then it rained in Iowa, and kept raining, enough to postpone the start of the main event long enough for Kyle to hot-foot it (literally, in one short leg of the trip) from Virginia to that other Knoxville in time to not only compete, but win.
This naturally adds to the Kyle Larson legend and boosts the theory that he’s the best all-around racer in North America. But still, we’re now at 15 months since his most recent Cup Series win, and that seems impossible.
If that Hendrick team can find something — anything — maybe Kyle will become the next Joey Logano and reinsert himself into the championship picture. Or maybe not.
Fourth Gear: Daytona ticket window needs a bubble
You know who’s pulling for some big-time scrambling down there around the playoff cutline? That’s right, the guys and gals manning the Daytona ticket windows.
When Daytona’s summer race — the old Firecracker 400 — was moved off its early-July date, six-plus decades of tradition was uprooted and some weren’t happy about it (go figure!). Hell, some still hadn’t gotten over moving it to the first Saturday of July instead of its original Fourth of July home.
The consolation, for some, was strategic importance. As the final race of the 26-race regular season, Daytona served as the race that would finalize the playoff field. It also offered one final shot at winning a race and crashing the playoff party — always a possibility at a plate-race like Daytona.
But now the win-and-you’re-in potential is gone, so aside from watching the lead pack as we always do, the additional drama will involve 16th position in the points standings. Not exactly a promoter’s dream, you know.
Landing that 16th postseason spot isn’t quite the longshot hope as landing a 16th seed in the NCAA hoops tournament, but it’s close. And depending on what happens this coming weekend, there might not even be a battle for 16th.
Can’t way we saw that one coming.
Email Ken Willis at ken.willis@news-jrnl.com
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Joey Logano reappears as NASCAR playoff bubble pops for now with Daytona race nearing
Reporting by Ken Willis, Daytona Beach News-Journal / The Daytona Beach News-Journal
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Ken Willis, Daytona Beach News-Journal | USA TODAY Network
