Drivers are scrambling for spots in NASCAR's Chase as the end of the regular season nears

NEWTON, Iowa (AP) — Erik Jones knew the reality of his situation heading into the NASCAR Cup Series race at Iowa Speedway.

Jones came into the weekend 18th in the standings, 44 points behind 16th-place Austin Cindric for the final spot in The Chase that determines the series champion. The 350-lap race Sunday was the first of the final four races of the regular season, and Jones was running out of time.

“One more bad week where we lose any ground, and it’s going to be pretty insurmountable,” Jones said.

Then Jones, who started 10th, got taken out four laps in when Tyler Reddick’s car slid into him, sending both cars into the wall and ending the day for both drivers.

Reddick knew the damage he had done.

“If I’m going to take myself out, that’s one thing,” Reddick said. “But I took out a (Toyota) teammate who needed a good day.”

Such is life in the closing stretch of the regular season, where one bad finish or one good finish can change fortunes.

Denny Hamlin leads the standings with 923 points, 103 points ahead of Ty Gibbs, who won Sunday's race just ahead of Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Christopher Bell.

Only four drivers have wrapped up Chase spots: Hamlin, Gibbs, Ryan Blaney (813) and Reddick (803).

Cindric has 526 points. Ryan Preece is the first driver below the cutline at 497 points. Ross Chastain jumped three spots after his seventh-place finish at Iowa, moving into 18th place at 479 points. Brad Keselowski is one point behind Chastain.

Other than maybe the last one or two spots, the biggest scramble now in this final month could be for seeding. Points for the top 16 drivers will reset after the Aug. 29 regular-season finale at Daytona. The regular-season champion will be the top seed and start The Chase with 2,100 points, the second seed will have 2,075 points and the third seed will have 2,065, with a five-point drop for each seed after that.

“You have all these other little battles going on, like the battle from sixth to 11th or 12th right now is really, really tight and that’s exciting,” said Blaney, who finished third Sunday. “Those guys are dogging it out right now. That’s a lot of points from sixth down to 11th or whatever. So I think it creates a lot of exciting things through the regular season.”

Some of the biggest changes in the standings came in that middle group. Chase Briscoe rose three spots to fifth place with 663 points. He's four points ahead of Bell, who climbed four spots with his second-place finish.

A crash ended Kyle Larson’s day and he finished 33rd to drop four spots in the standings to 10th.

The crucial jump of the day, though, belonged to Gibbs, who went from fourth to second.

“We’ve scored a lot of points in the last couple races,” Gibbs said. “To be able to finish it off today was awesome. I think the difference between the leader and 16th is 100 points, isn’t it, when the playoffs start? So it puts you in a better shot for the title at the end of the year.”

Jones’ early exit dropped him to 20th place, 50 points behind Cindric and four drivers to climb over to get on the good side of the cut line.

“At this point, we’ve got three races,” Jones said. “We got to just go try to win and run the best we can. It’s not over until it’s over, but it’s a tall mountain.”

AP NASCAR: https://apnews.com/hub/nascar-racing