The race for the final few wildcard spots in the NASCAR Cup Series standings are getting tighter and tighter now. Thank Cole Custer and Austin Dillon’s wins the last few weeks for that. Then, also factor in Matt DiBenedetto and Clint Bowyer combining for zero stage points, and you get an even tighter bubble heading to the final seven races of the regular season.

On Lap 175, Joey Logano appeared to cut a tire and shoot up the track in Turn 2. That was on a restart so it collected several drivers, one of those being DiBenedetto. The Wood Brothers driver entered the night being 14th in the playoff standings. He leaves with a 36th place result. That’s his third finish of 17th or worse in his last four starts on the season which is leaving him ticked off. He went from +51 in the standings to +35.

“I couldn’t tell what was going on,” DiBenedetto said. “I just tried to go low. I saw guys checked up off of two. I didn’t see it. I just got clipped in the right side. Nothing I could do different. I am not going to lie. I am pretty frickin irritated. We have had garbage luck the last couple of weeks. The Menards Dutch Boy Ford Mustang was fast and we deserve better. We are racing for the playoffs and this is just annoying.”

Then, Jimmie Johnson was collected with some crash damage and could never get his car right. He ended his night early in 31st. The seven-time champion has five straight finishes outside of the top 15 and seven straight outside of the top 10. He hasn’t won a race in 114 races now and lost 20 points as he went from +2 to -20.

Bowyer had a terrible early part of the race in finishing 16th and 21st respectively in the two stages. His car came around in the end but he still finished 14th. He moves around DiBenedetto for 14th and is +42 now, gaining six points on the event.

Byron, stole a top 10 to move from two down to 10 points up. Tyler Reddick got five much need stage points in the first stage to come in -10 heading to New Hampshire. Erik Jones’ fifth place run and five combined stage points move him around Johnson into 18th (-12).

Bubba Wallace is 20th right now -100, shaping up a six driver battle for three spots right now.

The series has seven regular season races left with the next being over a week away now in New Hampshire.