OPINION: Who Needed The Olympic Break To Reset?

MOORESVILLE, N.C. - Time off in life is normally considered rewarding. However, coming out of the two-week Olympic break, the recent slowdown for NASCAR Cup Series drivers could also be viewed as a reset.

With four races left until the playoffs begin, the action and uncertainty is scorching for drivers and teams in the thick of the cut line battle.

Four chances remain to make the 16-car field: Richmond (Va.) Raceway on Aug. 11, Michigan Int’l Speedway on Aug. 18, Daytona (Fla.) Int’l Speedway on Aug. 24, and Darlington (S.C.) Raceway on Sept. 1.

Below are several names who the recent break may benefit the most, including a driver currently locked into the playoffs chasing an additional prize in the regular season.

Honorable Mention: Josh Berry: two top fives, four top 10s, 78 laps led

In his rookie season with Stewart-Haas Racing, Berry was arguably the hottest rising driver in the Cup Series garage at one point. During the month of June, he accumulated a seventh-place finish at Iowa Speedway and was third at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. During that stretch he carried the banner for the soon-to-be shutdown SHR, showing speed by also qualifying second at Nashville Superspeedway and fifth at Pocono (Pa.) Raceway.

The pairing of Berry and veteran championship crew chief Rodney Childress was viewed as one of the best in the garage area during the summer. But since then, the No. 4 team has cooled off.

Berry and company only have one top-20 finish in the last four races.

Where could Berry’s luck turn? Perhaps this coming weekend at Richmond. Berry is a known short track racer with a late model upbringing, when he broke into the sport with JR Motorsports on the NASCAR Xfinity Series side.

This automatically makes him a name to watch at Richmond, as he finished 11th in the spring race and has four finishes of 12th or better on short tracks this season.

Ford is known to bring quality cars to their home race in Michigan as well, also helping Berry’s chances at the postseason. The Blue Ovals have won every race on the two-mile oval since Clint Bowyer’s victory back in June of 2018.

But Berry’s biggest wildcard will be at Daytona. Although Ford has been competitive on restrictor-plate tracks in the Next Gen era, the draft always boosts the field’s chances as a whole. Berry finished third at Darlington in May, too, making him a threat to gain points during the 74th running of the Southern 500.

When on a hot streak, Berry is as dangerous as any top Cup Series competitor, but when he’s off the mark he can become ice cold, as shown throughout the month of July. If there ever was a time for the No. 4 team to catch fire, it likely needs to be at Richmond.

4. Kyle Busch: two top fives, six top 10s, 135 laps led 

It’s been no secret that two-time Cup Series champion Kyle Busch has struggled this year. His streak of 20 consecutive seasons with a win is in jeopardy. Busch has just one top 10 (Chicago (Ill.) Street Race) since the spring race at Kansas Speedway, where he finished eighth in May.

The last time Busch missed the playoffs was in 2012. He has never missed the postseason in the elimination era, which started back in 2014, but now only has four more chances to keep that run alive.

Busch has wins at each of the remaining four regular season tracks, meaning experience will be the least of his concerns. But those came with Joe Gibbs Racing, and with Busch now in year two with Richard Childress Racing, one can’t assume the results will automatically be there.

Busch is a six-time Richmond winner, but RCR’s short track program has struggled this year. Despite a third-place finish in Richmond’s summer date race year, in April Busch came home 20th.

Factor in two consecutive DNF’s at Michigan in 2022 and ‘23, and Busch’s strongest hope at extending his playoff streak might be the Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona.

Busch came close to winning last year’s Daytona 500 before getting wrecked on the final lap in overtime. This past February he finished 12th in the Great American Race. Looking also to Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway - which features a similar style of draft as Daytona - last year, Busch won the Geico 500, something the 39-year-old hadn’t done since 2008.

RCR’s biggest flex in both the Cup Series and Xfinity Series has long been their superspeedway program. Meaning, if you’re RCR, you’re likely putting all of your eggs into one basket for Daytona.

In the meantime, the team has to try and at least strive to salvage top-15 finishes at Richmond, Michigan and Darlington, as Busch will more than likely have to win to make the playoff field considering he’s 112 points behind the cut line entering Richmond.

Even if Busch does miss the playoffs, he still has 14 more chances to keep his 20-year win streak alive. But right now, it’s a game of wait and see.

3. Trackhouse Racing: four top fives, 11 top 10s, 214 laps led (combined)

Since the Trackhouse brand entered the Cup Series in 2021, the team owned by Justin Marks and entertainer PitBull has burst onto the scene and made its mark already. Through drivers Ross Chastain, Daniel Suarez and part-timer Shane Van Gisbergen, the team has won a combined seven races.

The most recent came at Atlanta (Ga.) Motor Speedway in March, where Suarez edged out Kyle Busch and Ryan Blaney in a photo finish by .003 seconds, the now-fourth closest finish in Cup Series history.

Since then, however, the Trackhouse team has hit troubling times. The team has not found victory lane since Atlanta and only has one top five finish as an organization - at Sonoma (Calif.) Raceway - in the last four months, after Suarez did so at Texas Motor Speedway in April.

Granted, Chastain was wrecked while going for the lead and a repeat victory at Nashville (Tenn.) Superspeedway in overtime. Now, he finds himself just seven points ahead of Bubba Wallace for the 16th and final slot in the playoff field.

One could argue, considering how the weeks prior to the break went for the competitors, Wallace is in the cat-bird’s seat right now, because he’s made up 38 points on Chastain and the cutoff line.

For Suarez, even with his Atlanta win as a playoff lock, he sits just 17th in the regular season points. If not for that win, he’d be right in the thick of the cutline battle. The focus for the Monterrey, Mexico, native now is simple: build momentum in order to avoid two Round of 16 eliminations in three years.

Chastain’s best chances to win his way into the playoffs over the next four races lay at Michigan and Darlington. The 31-year-old finished seventh and led 16 laps in last year’s Michigan race and has an 11th and fifth in his two most recent Darlington starts.

2. Ty Gibbs: five top fives, nine top 10s, 349 laps led

The 21-year-old’s talent, nor his performances all season, have been in question. Ty Gibbs is legit. He qualified on pole, led 74 laps, and finished six at the Coca-Cola 600 in May, just a taste of what he’s done in his sophomore year.

However, as of late, Gibbs’ issue has been learning how to close out races and finish well.

Throughout the summer Gibbs has had races where he’s collected stage points after qualifying and racing solidly early, but hasn’t had the results to show for it at the checkered flag.

An example is the Chicago Street race, where Gibbs qualified second, gained 42 points, but wasn’t able to close out the win and finished third after leading 17 laps. The same could be said about Nashville Superspeedway - where he qualified eighth, but finished 23rd - and Sonoma (Calif.) Raceway, where Gibbs qualified 10th but did not finish after clipping the inside Turn 11 barrier, scored 37th in June.

Add in two straight weeks in July with engine issues after qualifying on the pole at Pennsylvania’s Pocono Raceway and sixth at the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and the point is obvious.

The speed, talent and cars are there each weekend for Gibbs and the No. 54 team; it’s just a matter of putting it all together and actually taking the checkered flag first.

Despite all the trouble, Gibbs sits 42 points above the cut line, so his path to the playoffs is still somewhat clear.

He has two top-15 finishes in his last three starts at Richmond, 10th- and 11th-place finishes at Michigan in two starts between 23XI Racing and JGR, and finished second in May’s throwback race at Darlington in May.

If he can put all the right pieces together, Gibbs will be a sure lock for his first career postseason berth, could possibly find his first Cup Series win, and even become a wildcard to make a deep playoff run.

A curveball to Gibbs’ playoff chances is Daytona, however. In six Cup Series starts at the World Center of Racing, Gibbs has just one top 10, when he finished eighth in the Daytona 500 in February.

1. Tyler Reddick: nine top fives, 15 top 10s, 449 laps led

This may shock everyone, right? It gets away from the trend of highlighting cutline contenders and definitive players who very much need the next four weeks to go well.

But a potential change-up to this year’s predicted Championship 4 could easily be the pride of Corning, Calif.

In reality, Reddick should be a multi-time winner this season and shouldn’t just have the Geico 500 trophy from Talladega to his name.

Reddick could’ve won Darlington, as he battled the RFK Racing duo of Brad Keselowski and Chris Buescher in May but wrecked with Buescher with nine laps to go.

He should’ve had Nashville Superspeedway won over Joey Logano, with a tire advantage if he’d had one more lap, and arguably would’ve won at the Chicago (Ill.) Street Course if he hadn’t scraped the wall while chasing Alex Bowman on the final lap, forced to settle for second.

Similar to Gibbs, this season for the No. 45 team has been a mantra of what could’ve been.

However, it’s fair to say Reddick’s best has yet to come. In recent years, 23XI Racing has been one of the better second half teams on the Cup Series grid.

Sitting third in the regular season standings, Reddick is only 15 points back of series leader Kyle Larson, and five behind second place Chase Elliott for the regular season championship, making the stretch run to the Darlington regular season finale all the more important.

A regular season title would allow Reddick to enter the playoffs with a points cushion, leaving the playoff opener and his lone track type weakness of a drafting facility (Atlanta Motor Speedway) as leeway for a subpar finish. However, the following race at Watkins Glen (N.Y.) International is one where Reddick has three straight top 10 finishes, including eighth last year.

At Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway the 28-year-old could rely on his points buffer, knowing the usual chaos that the Bass Pro Shops Night Race has traditionally produced.

Further down the road, three out of the last five Kansas Speedway races have been won by 23XI Racing, with Reddick as the defending winner of the fall race. Having also won at Talladega in April, Reddick could already have a Round of 12 victory entering the Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway ROVAL. Last year, Reddick qualified on pole and finished sixth at CMS.

Reddick has two consecutive top 10s at Las Vegas (Nev.) Motor Speedway, including second in this year’s spring race, and was third last fall with 23XI at Homestead-Miami (Fla.) Speedway, arguably his best statistical track overall and in the Round of 8 lineup. Replicating his seventh-place finish from Martinsville (Va.) Speedway in April could just propel Reddick into title contention from there.

The path for Reddick to get to Arizona’s Phoenix Raceway inside the Championship 4 is there for the taking, including the strength needed to be a dark horse championship contender beyond the likes of Larson, Denny Hamlin, William Byron, and Ryan Blaney.

But it all starts coming off this two-week Olympic break, meaning Reddick will need to be on his game now in order to be where he wants to be down the stretch.

The NASCAR Cup Series field returns to action this weekend at the three-quarter-mile Richmond (Va.) Raceway, where Denny Hamlin won in the spring.

Broadcast coverage of the Cook Out 400 begins Sunday, Aug. 11 at 6 p.m. ET on USA, the Motor Racing Network, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, channel 90.