Firmly on the playoff bubble, Chris Buescher can take solace in the fact that this upcoming part of the schedule was so good to him last year.

Not that he’s taking anything for granted.

“Three of the next four races we’re heading into we were able to win last year,” Buescher said. “That’s a pretty awesome statistic as we look at it, but last year’s results don’t equal this year’s. We’ve been very good at a lot of different styles of racetracks. We’ve been very close to locking ourselves in.”

NASCAR returns from its Olympic break this weekend, and Sunday night’s Cup race at Richmond begins a four-race pre-playoff sprint. Twelve drivers have already won races this year, but Buescher isn’t one of them. He ranks 12th overall in the points standings and third among winless drivers.

In other words, squarely on the playoff borderline.

Last year, Buescher was also winless entering the second race at Richmond, but he prevailed in that one, then won again the following week at Michigan. He added a third victory in under a month at Daytona in late August.

“We had been inching towards that kind of success and finally just fired on all eight when we got to Richmond,” Buescher said. “I think that was a big confidence booster for our team as we headed into the next few. We were able to go to Michigan and do the same things, pull off a little bit of strategy there, but also just execute at the highest level, and then Daytona was very much just a team win for us.”

This year’s final stretch before the playoffs includes Richmond, Michigan, Daytona and Darlington. Those venues range in size from the short track (0.75 miles) at Richmond to 2 1/2-mile Daytona. Denny Hamlin won at Richmond for the fifth time earlier this year. Kyle Busch is the active leader at the track with six victories, but he hasn’t won there since 2018.

Scenarios

Seven drivers have already clinched a spot in the 16-driver postseason: Kyle Larson, Chase Elliott, Tyler Reddick, Denny Hamlin, Ryan Blaney, William Byron and Christopher Bell.

Brad Keselowski, Alex Bowman, Joey Logano, Daniel Suarez and Austin Cindric have all won this season, and they would all clinch spots in the playoffs unless a first-time winner prevails at Richmond.

On the bubble, the top winless racers in the standings are Martin Truex Jr., Ty Gibbs, Buescher and Ross Chastain. On the other side of the current cut line are Bubba Wallace, Chase Briscoe, Busch and Todd Gilliland.