AJ Allmendinger knew what was at stake entering Sunday’s Go Bowling at The Glen. The Kaulig Racing driver had to win Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race in order to give him the best shot at making the postseason.

Having to do so in Daytona, a place that’s not among his favorite style of tracks, well it was a tall task. On a road course? This was it.

Among Allmendinger’s 19 career wins across Cup and Xfinity, 13 of them are on road courses including both in Cup. His first career win came here.

He qualified his No. 16 Chevrolet sixth on Saturday. That set him up nicely for Sunday’s race. He was 5th in both stages which net him 12 stage points. Still, it wasn’t points that he’s after. He was after the win.

Unfortunately, he came up just short with a fourth place finish in the end. He was 4.066-seconds back.

“For our race team, the playoffs would be great to get into,” he said. “Our ultimate goal is to keep building and get better. The last couple of weeks we’ve had some speed and struggles. Then we’ve struggled with speed at other places. It’s about building.

“Of course we want to win. We want to get in the playoffs. We’ll lay it all on the line next week doing it. But it’s just about building momentum and trying to get better.”

It was just his fifth top 10 result all year but one of the others came in the season opening Daytona 500. He was 6th that day. In Atlanta, he was 3rd which is his best finish of the season.

Can he pick up an unlikely win Saturday night in Daytona and take a playoff spot in the process?