RFK Racing's Chris Buescher has been on the plus side of the NASCAR Cup Series playoff cut line for the better part of the regular season's second half.
There hadn't been any significant changes relating to drivers being provisionally bumped out since Trackhouse Racing's Shane van Gisbergen, from outside the top 30 in points, scored the first of his four wins of the year in Mexico back in mid-June.
At that point, RFK Racing's Ryan Preece dropped out of the provisional playoff picture, and after each of the following eight races, the projected 16-driver field remained the exact same.
Even 23XI Racing's Bubba Wallace, who won at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in late July, only shook things up to a small extent. He was already on the plus side, though because he was slotted in 16th out of 16, the win did make the cut line harder to achieve. Still, nothing changed as far as who was in and who was out.
Between SVG's first win of the year and his fourth at Watkins Glen International two weekends ago, the only other new winners (aside from Wallace) to emerge this year were Hendrick Motorsports' Chase Elliott and Joe Gibbs Racing's Chase Briscoe, and they were both well above the cut line anyway.
Chris Buescher suddenly in a must-win situation
But Richard Childress Racing's Austin Dillon delivered an upset win at Richmond Raceway a week ago, and because of that, Buescher, once believed to be at least somewhat safe, now is not only no longer safe, but he is no longer on the plus side of the cutoff.
And not only that; he has no way of getting back there unless he wins the regular season finale at Daytona International Speedway on Saturday night.
Of course, this is something he actually did do two years ago when he emerged out of pretty much nowhere and won the regular season's final three oval races. But Daytona is always a crapshoot, and needing to win to get in is not a position that anybody wants to be in.
Buescher's only win since that Daytona triumph came in last year's playoff race at Watkins Glen International, at which point he had already missed the playoffs on points despite being well inside the top 16.
This year, he is 11th, and on points alone, that's not good enough to be one of the 16 playoff drivers. The cut line is currently between 23XI Racing's Tyler Reddick in seventh and Hendrick Motorsports' Alex Bowman in ninth. Should a new winner emerge at Daytona (other than Reddick or Bowman), Reddick or Bowman would miss the playoffs entirely.
Reddick currently has a 29-point advantage over Bowman, an advantage which could easily evaporate in a typical "Big One" at Daytona.
With 36 full-time drivers, Buescher is one of 20 drivers facing a must-win situation on Saturday night. And given how common upset winners at Daytona, Reddick and Bowman could very well find themselves added to that list as the laps wind down.
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