COKE ZERO SUGAR 400: Playoff fortunes for Ryan Blaney, Martin Truex Jr. flip after delay

DAYTONA BEACH — Martin Truex Jr. lost the draft in the late stages of Sunday's Coke Zero Sugar 400 and, with it, his grip on the last remaining NASCAR Cup Series playoff spot.

Truex needed to finish 11 spots better than Ryan Blaney in order to secure a playoff spot. Both drivers would have qualified had a 2022 repeat winner prevailed at Daytona International Speedway.

Instead, Austin Dillon passed Austin Cindric to reclaim the lead with three laps left. Truex dropped to the middle of the pack, and finished in eighth place — seven spots ahead of Blaney in the race but, crucially, 3 points behind him in the final standings.

Take a look: Rain and more rain soaks Coke Zero Sugar 400 scenes Saturday at Daytona

COKE ZERO SUGAR 400: Playoff fortunes for Ryan Blaney, Martin Truex Jr. flip after delay

Live updates: Coke Zero Sugar 400 win goes to Austin Dillon; he led under red and checkers

"We just had too much damage at the end," Truex said. "We had a good spot on the restart and we got a good restart. We got the 2 (Cindric) up front, which is what we were trying to do, but just couldn’t keep up. Just too much damage. It’s a shame.

"We knew it was going to be tough with so many cars out of the race and the distance between me and the 12 (Blaney). It was going to be hard to hang on to fourth or better with a car that torn up.”

NASCAR waited out the rain clouds, which hurt Martin Truex Jr.

Truex's fate would have been different had NASCAR elected to call off the final 21 laps. The race, originally scheduled for a 7 p.m. Saturday green flag, underwent a 3-hour, 20-minute red-flag delay as a storm cell passed through.

Dillon held the lead when drivers exited their vehicles, escaping a huge Turn 1 wreck that claimed race leaders Denny Hamlin and Daniel Suárez, along with playoff hopefuls Bubba Wallace, Erik Jones, Chris Buescher and Justin Haley among others.

Truex was running sixth at the time; Blaney was 29th, a byproduct of being involved in an earlier pileup.

Blaney's car took extensive right front tire, suspension and body damage on a backstretch collision in Stage 2. He was able to meet the minimum speed and avoided further trouble to secure his spot despite finishing six laps behind the leaders.

Ryan Blaney: It's Beer-30

If he was stressed about the possibility of missing the playoffs on account of the weather, Blaney certainly did his best to hide it after the race.

"It was fine. I sat up in the (pit) box for about an hour or so, went back to the bus and changed out of my wet clothes, had some dinner and watched the PGA Tour," Blaney said. "There's nothing I could do. There was no use sitting there, pulling hair out over it. It's out of your control.

"You can only go out there and hope it gets back to racing. I fully accepted the fact that it could downpour at any moment."

That's not to say the weekend did not take a toll on Blaney, the lone driver to make the playoffs without a trip to Victory Lane on his 2022 résumé.

"I want to go home, crack open a beer and relax a little bit. That was a stressful day," Blaney said. "It was a long weekend — no qualifying, no getting in the car, no race last night, wait around today after you get wrecked and have a three-hour delay.

"I'm definitely mentally drained."

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: NASCAR results: Ryan Blaney makes playoffs, Martin Truex Jr. out