The removal of "win and in" means that a driver can no longer win a race in February or March to lock himself into the NASCAR playoffs for any of the three national series.
That still didn't stop one driver from clinching a spot in the revamped postseason format even before the middle of June rolled around, and we don't mean Denny Hamlin, who is now riding the first three-race winning streak of his 22-year career following his 64th career victory on Sunday at Pocono Raceway.
We don't even mean Tyler Reddick, who has led the Cup Series point standings since opening up the year with his own three-race winning streak.
NASCAR driver clinches playoff spot before mid-June
We do mean the weekend's other winner at the "Tricky Triangle", and that is O'Reilly Auto Parts Series points leader Justin Allgaier.
The driver of the No. 7 JR Motorsports Chevrolet, who won the series championship in 2024, has been on a different planet this season, and his victory on Saturday was his series-leading fifth of the year. Even when he hasn't won, he has scored plenty of points, thanks to seven other finishes between second and fourth place.
Allgaier's points lead over reigning series champion Jesse Love is 250 points. With just seven of 24 races remaining on the regular season schedule, Allgaier could literally go scoreless the rest of the way, and Love's current average points per race tally would not even be enough to elevate him above Allgaier's current total.
For all intents and purposes, Allgaier's playoff spot has been sealed for a while. But mathematically speaking, he was able to officially secure one of the 12 postseason positions with his Pocono win.
There are still 525 points up for grabs over the course of the regular season's final seven races, and Allgaier is currently 413 points ahead of Taylor Gray, who is the top driver below the playoff cut line in 13th place.
However, 105 of those 525 points are the 15 bonus points awarded to race winners. Even without those bonus points, race wins were still were five more points than runner-up finishes.
So while Gray can technically still catch up to Allgaier, him doing so would take enough points off the table from everybody else to guarantee that Allgaier cannot be passed by 11 other drivers.
Now Allgaier's mission is simple: prepare for the postseason.
There are no more playoff points awarded for race victories, so a regular season championship would give Allgaier a 25-point lead to begin the nine-race "Chase", regardless of his regular season championship-winning margin. Wins over these next seven races would be nice, but they probably wouldn't mean much from a championship standpoint.
Seeing as how that 25-point lead feels like a foregone conclusion at this point, the No. 7 team should already have the luxury of being able to focus on the nine tracks on the playoff calendar, even more than two and a half months before the Chase is actually scheduled to begin.
The United Rentals Driven to Serve 250 is the inaugural O'Reilly Auto Parts Series street race at Qualcomm Circuit on Naval Base Coronado in San Diego, California, and live coverage is set to be provided by the CW Network beginning at 5:00 p.m. ET on Saturday, June 20. Begin a free trial of FuboTV today and don't miss it!
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