Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona: A wee bit of breathing room for Martin Truex, Ryan Blaney

The playoff outlook has gotten a little better for Martin Truex Jr.

Hardly to a comfortable level, not by a long shot. But still, better.

Kurt Busch announced Thursday he’ll withdraw from the playoffs due to ongoing issues with concussion symptoms, stemming from at hard wreck at Pocono last month.

Busch’s news has changed the Daytona calculus heading into Saturday night’s Coke Zero Sugar 400 (7 p.m., NBC)..

For the sake of contrast, let’s do a Before and After on the Busch announcement . . .

Before: Truex, Blaney were in heads-on-a-swivel mode

The 15 different winners from 2022 were locked into the playoffs. A 16th different winner at Daytona (assuming he was otherwise eligible) would round out the playoff field.

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If there wasn’t a 16th different winner, the final playoff spot would go to either Ryan Blaney or Truex, with Blaney holding a 25-point edge over Truex entering Daytona. All others are too far behind Truex to have a mathematical shot.

Things were looking bad for Truex, who carries around a career doughnut at the two superspeedways: Zero for 34 at Daytona, zero for 35 at Talladega.

He had an agonizingly close loss to Denny Hamlin in the 2016 Daytona 500, losing by mere inches, but in 12 Daytona starts since then, there’s been just two top-10s and lots of bent sheet metal.

“It hasn’t been one of my better tracks, but I really enjoy going there,” Truex said entering the pressurized week. “In the Daytona 500 this year, we had a really strong car and led laps, won the first two stages and were feeling good about things. Then, we had an issue on pit road and had to go to the back and we were swept up in a crash.”

After the Busch news: A bit of breathing room for Blaney, Truex 

If Blaney keeps his car clean by somehow missing the Wrong Place/Wrong Time element (the inevitable Big One at Daytona), he obviously should be able to nurse a 25-point lead over Truex and hold on to a playoff spot.

But that If is never bigger than it is at a superspeedway race.

If Truex erases Blaney's current points lead, and if a new 2022 winner emerges Saturday night, Blaney's playoff invite is re-routed elsewhere. Don't think all that can happen? You haven't watched enough superspeedway racing.

As for Truex, if we don’t see a 2022 non-winner pull into Victory Lane, he’s in the playoffs. But keep in mind, seven former Daytona winners, all non-winners this year, are scattered throughout the field like snipers taking aim on Truex’s playoff hopes.

“It’s gonna be aggressive,” says Aric Almirola, one of those seven. “We’re gonna have to go, we’re gonna have to go put ourself in position, take risks, take chances, do whatever it takes to go win the race.”

Here’s the odd part. It’s not like Blaney and Truex are simply looking for a playoff berth to pad their racing credentials. Both racers, and their teams, would enter the playoffs with mid-level odds of advancing through the first two rounds, at least.

No, neither has won this year, but they’re not strangers to champagne and confetti — Truex won four times last year, has 31 career wins, and is the 2017 Cup champ; Blaney won three times last year and has won at least once every season since 2017.

Most telling, however, is their position in the pure points standings — Blaney is third, Truex sixth.

“If we get in the playoffs, we think we can go far,” says Truex, who has battled to crack the code in NASCAR’s new Next Gen race car. “It’s not one thing. That’s really been the toughest part of it all. I feel like we’re doing things right.

“We’ve had cars we should’ve won with. Made some mistakes, but that’s all part of racing.”

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Daytona Coke Zero 400: Ryan Blaney, Martin Truex improve NASCAR odds