This past Saturday night at Daytona, NASCAR ended its regular season and set the stage for the final ten weeks of the season. But, it’s still not time to shut the book on NASCAR’s cutoff race. So, who were the biggest losers from NASCAR’s weekend at Daytona International Speedway?
Not only did Kyle Busch not make the playoffs, nor did he win the final race of the regular season, but he didn’t even get a chance to finish stage one. At least they got the car back out there, right?
Last year, everyone blamed RCR for Busch’s performance, which was understandable. Busch won three races in the first half of 2023, looked to be back in form, but nosedived to kick off one of RCR’s worst seasons since Kevin Harvick’s departure (which says a lot). Busch even came close to winning several times, including back-to-back races before the 2024 playoffs.
This year, there isn’t much to say. Busch’s average start and average finish are up, but the team is not in winning form, which is nothing new to NASCAR, but is a similar funk the team was in towards the latter half of 2023. Driver or team, this season for KFB has been flat-out miserable.
Okay, hear us out for a minute. Parker Kligerman is not a loser by common definition; he is not a victim of his own failures, he is a victim of the rule book, be that overtime policies, disqualifications, or substitute driver rules throughout the past two seasons.
For those unfamiliar, Kligerman probably should have probably won his first Xfinity Series race during the overtime race at the Roval last fall, and in the Truck Series race at Daytona earlier this year, he was disqualified after winning the race. Now, he finds himself a winner by action but not by definition, having brought home Connor Zilisch’s No. 88 with a win Saturday night.
While this win may not be in the NASCAR record book, if the fans treat this race the way they do Aric Almirola and Denny Hamlin at Milwaukee in 2007, it will be remembered as his win, rather than Zilisch’s. Hey, at least RacingReference cares.
Oh boy, did Ryan Blaney save us from another week of playoff talk, though we ensure you will hear it in our next entry.
You had four non-playoff drivers allow the one playoff driver to slip by for a win, and luckily enough, it not only saved the playoff discussion but the superspeedway discussion, as someone with a credible superspeedway background won a clean race.
Nonetheless, had Daniel Suarez won, it would have been a great story; had Erik Jones won, it would’ve been STP’s first Daytona win since 1984, and if Justin Haley had won, despite his current stats, it would absolutely save his spot with Spire.
But had Cole Custer won this race, there was a possibility that NASCAR would have had online backlash beyond that of Harrison Burton and Joey Logano last season. Burton had worse stats than Custer, and no matter how good a feel-good story it would’ve been, it’s probably for the best that Custer didn’t win.
Well, as advertised, we need to talk playoff format, and you know who didn’t win, but still made their way into the group picture at the finish line in Daytona? Chris Buescher.
So far this season, Buescher has the seventh-best average finish of all active drivers and did not make the playoffs, over the likes of SVG’s 21.1 average finish and Austin Dillon’s flat 20. Of course, if you look at the old ways of scoring points, you will likely notice that he would be a solid ninth on old points (barring outside factors like racing style and method of points collection).
You know who else didn’t make it into the playoffs? Ryan Preece is having a rebound year for the ages. His boss, Brad Keselowski, who, over the past ten races, has become his same old consistent self despite his miserable start to 2026, is also not going to make the playoffs one year after snapping his two-year streak of absences.
This is the second year in a row that Buescher missed the playoffs and the first time since 2022 that an RFK Ford is not a part of the fun. Everyone knew three cars would be hard, but what’s left to say when you had a solid first three-car season but still came up short?
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