With Chris Buescher and Michael McDowell combining to win each of the last three NASCAR Cup Series races, the playoff standings have changed once again. In saying that, it’s not like either are truly all that shocking though.

Buescher sits 10th in the points standings currently. McDowell is 15th. Even Ricky Stenhouse Jr. winning the Daytona 500 isn’t much of a fluke either. He’s 16th in points too.

Which means that no winner sits below 16th in points coming to the final two weeks of the regular season. It’s been a straight forward type of season.

With three spots at the moment available on points, who takes them? Does anyone new win the final two races?

Kevin Harvick (+145), Brad Keselowski (+143) and Bubba Wallace (+28) are on the good side of the cut line. Do either of these three win?

What about Daniel Suarez (-28), Ty Gibbs (-49), Alex Bowman (-80), Chase Elliott (-80), AJ Allmendinger (-87), Austin Cindric (-105), Justin Haley (-145), Aric Almirola (-154), Ryan Preece (-157), Corey LaJoie (-173), Todd Gilliland (-181), Erik Jones (-193), Austin Dillon (-198), Harrison Burton (-221), Chase Briscoe (-238) and Ty Dillon (-330). They’re trying to get their ways in.

Really, among them, only Suarez can point his way in. Most of the others just have to win. Can they do it?

Gibbs (0-for-39), Preece (0-for-139), LaJoie (0-for-224), Gilliland (0-for-60), Burton (0-for-61) and Ty Dillon (0-for-226) have never won before.

Suarez (43 races ago), Haley (149 races ago, 92 attempts), Cindric (58 races ago), Briscoe (55 races ago) have only won once.

Allmendinger has won twice but not since the 2021 Indy road course (71 races ago, 42 attempts). Almirola hasn’t won in his last 73 attempts.

Gibbs could even be in the hunt. He’s won 12 times in the Xfinity Series with 4 of which on these tracks including just last Saturday at Indy.

Can they just all the sudden win?

Watkins Glen could be a spot for Suarez (3rd at Indy, 5th last year) to do so. His only win came on a road course in Sonoma last year. Same for Allmendinger who’s 2 career wins came on road courses including this track in 2014. Among Allmendinger’s 19 career wins across Cup and Xfinity, 13 of them are on road courses including both in Cup. The only issue with him is, he’s only scored the 19th most points on road courses this season.

Elliott is bar none of the best road racers with 7 wins on them in this career including 2 here. Elliott won two of the last four years in Watkins Glen with being runner-up (2021) and fourth (2022) in the others. Elliott didn’t race COTA this year but was fifth in Sonoma, third in Chicago and 2nd in Indy this season.

Then it’s to Daytona where Keselowski, Wallace, Cindric (Daytona 500 win last year), Austin Dillon (Coke Zero Sugar 400 win last year) could easily win too.

HMS could struggle there with 1 win in the last 15 points paying Daytona tries.

So predicting the final three spots is tough. But I’ll take a guess.

I think Chase Elliott wins Sunday in Watkins Glen and Brad Keselowski picks up a Daytona win while Kevin Harvick takes the lone wildcard spot on points.