LOUDON, N.H. — Michael McDowell described Monday as a “dogfight,” but that’s also what the race for the final playoff spot is likely to be over the final six races of the regular season.
When the checkered flag waved for Martin Truex Jr. on a sunny, humid afternoon at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, McDowell again held the final playoff spot and Chase Elliott remained 60 points behind. But other things changed.
MORE: Cup points report
MORE: New Hampshire results
Bubba Wallace moved two spots to 15th in the standings. He leads McDowell by one point.
Daniel Suarez fell two spots and out of a playoff position. He trails McDowell by one point.
AJ Allmendinger lost seven points to the cutline. He’s 20 points back.
Ty Gibbs lost 15 points to the cutline. He’s 41 points behind.
Alex Bowman moved up two spots to 20th in the season standings. He gained two points on the cutline and is 42 points back.
Justin Haley lost five points to the cutline and is 46 points back.
Austin Cindric fell two spots to 22nd in the standings. He lost 13 points to McDowell and is 51 points behind.
McDowell had never finished better than 17th at New Hampshire, and crew chief Travis Peterson told NBC Sports last week “the next four weeks is our playoff stretch.”
McDowell has three top 10s in a combined 81 Cup starts at New Hampshire, Pocono, Richmond and Michigan.
McDowell finished 13th on Monday and scored a stage point, which proved to be the difference in being in a playoff spot or not since Suarez owns the tiebreaker on McDowell.
“The goal for New Hampshire, honestly, was not to lose a lot of points just because it’s been a bad race for us,” McDowell said.
Mission accomplished, but McDowell said: “It would have been nice to get a top 10.”
Elliott was looking for something better, but finished 12th after once being a lap down. Elliott was part of the tire test at New Hampshire earlier this year, but it didn’t translate to a better performance. He saw another race pass with him 60 points behind.
“We’re focused on winning a race with that car,” Jeff Andrews, president and general manager at Hendrick Motorsports, told NBC Sports. “We’re not relying on pointing our way in. We’ll just keep working at it.”
Wallace moved into a playoff spot with his eighth-place finish — the first time he’s placed better than 15th in the last six races. It was a nice recovery after he twice slid through his pit stall and was nearly lapped halfway through the race.
“If we can just run clean, we can run top five everywhere,” crew chief Bootie Barker told NBC Sports. “We’re working toward that. All our people are excellent. Sometimes it’s just like that. We’re working on getting our groove back.”
Pit road also was a concern for Suarez, who finished 16th.
“I feel the car had speed at certain times,” crew chief Travis Mack told NBC Sports. “Had a few pit stop hiccups on the right rear that we’ll have to look into and see what happened there. We lost our track position.”
Things seemed to be headed in a better direction for Suarez, who stayed out while nearly the rest of the field had pitted. A caution at Lap 272 for Noah Gragson’s accident was the break Suarez needed, but Mack said they had another “hiccup” on the pit stop.
“We came back and salvaged our day,” Mack said.
On to Pocono as the race for the final playoff spot continues.
