23XI Racing's Bubba Wallace had a weekend to forget at Pocono Raceway after it started off looking like exactly what he needed to bolster his NASCAR Cup Series playoff chances when he ran the second fastest lap time in practice.
His No. 23 Toyota wouldn't fire for its qualifying attempt, relegating him to the 17th row (34th place) for the start of the 160-lap Great American Getaway presented by VISITPA around the three-turn, 2.5-mile (4.023-kilometer) Tricky Triangle in Long Pond, Pennsylvania.
Wallace was also technically penalized for pre-race adjustments, but so were the three drivers already set to start behind him, so he didn't actually have to drop back from his 34th place starting position.
Then just past the race's one-third mark, he was forced to the garage with a brake failure and subsequent wall contact.
Things actually managed to get worse for Wallace from there.
Joe Gibbs Racing's Chase Briscoe, with whom Wallace had been relatively close in the point standings above the provisional playoff cut line, became the season's 11th different winner in its 17th race, effectively punching his playoff ticket.
It marked the sixth time in the eight most recent races that a new winner had emerged, and it left just five spots open on points above the provisional playoff picture.
Wallace, who has been in a stout position pretty much all season on points, is now ahead of just one other driver above the cut line, and he is only 29 points ahead of it. Given the fact that he hasn't won since 2022 and missed last year's playoffs, this weekend was exactly what he couldn't have happen at this point in the season.
But another driver whose long-term outlook took a hit at Pocono is one whom many had presumed already locked himself into the playoffs: Trackhouse Racing's Shane van Gisbergen.
Van Gisbergen won last weekend's race at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, but he did not officially secure his playoff spot simply because there can still be more than 16 winners by the time the 26-race regular season concludes.
With Briscoe winning Sunday's race, the chances of there being more than 16 winners shot up. Eight drivers who compete full-time and won last year have not yet won this year, and there are still nine races left on the regular season schedule following an eight-race stretch which has surprisingly produced six new winners.
In the event that there end up being more winners than available playoff spots, the regular season champion gets in, as do all the drivers with multiple wins. The tiebreaker to determine which single-race winners get in becomes points.
Eight of this year's 11 winners are single-race winners. Van Gisbergen is by far the lowest of them in 31st place in the point standings. The next lowest, Wood Brothers Racing's Josh Berry, is all the way up in 16th.
It's hard to imagine anybody other than van Gisbergen ending up lowest in the regular season standings among race winners, meaning he is the driver who is most at risk of being dropped from the playoff field if more new drivers continue to find victory lane.
His spin and subsequent 31st place finish at Pocono illustrates that he is still nowhere near where he needs to be on ovals.
The easiest thing for him to do would be to win again. There can be no more than 13 multi-race winners during the regular season (actually 11 now, given where the 2025 season is at winner-wise), and he should have a good chance to become one, as three of the regular season's nine remaining races are road or street course races.
The Chicago Street Course, where van Gisbergen won in his Cup Series debut in 2023, is scheduled to host a race on Sunday, July 6, while Sonoma Raceway is scheduled to host a race on Sunday, July 13 and Watkins Glen International is scheduled to host a race on Sunday, August 10.
On the flip side, road and street course race is do tend to be sort of "wild card" races, and with two superspeedway races at Atlanta Motor Speedway and Daytona International Speedway also remaining on the regular season calendar, the door is wide open for a regular season with more than 16 winners.
Bottom line, Pocono exposed the playoff myth that winning once does indeed lock a driver in. There is absolutely no guarantee.
This weekend's race is a Saturday night race at Atlanta. The Quaker State 400 available at Walmart is set to be shown live on TNT Sports beginning at 7:00 p.m. ET.