DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- RFK Racing does not have a single car locked into the playoffs entering the regular-season finale. Yet, the team's drivers have the belief that the path to the playoffs will go through them.
"I think we're all pretty selfish as race car drivers," Ryan Preece said on Friday. "That's what we want to be and do, but in the back of our minds at the same time we know how important it is for the company to make sure that one of us gets in the playoffs.
"So whoever that is, that has the best opportunity at that point in time, we're gonna do the best we can to make sure that it happens."
They will have to hold off all of the other organizations when the pressure is the greatest. This includes Joe Gibbs Racing and Hendrick Motorsports, two teams that have three of their four drivers locked in with wins. The lone exceptions are Ty Gibbs at JGR and Alex Bowman at HMS.
"Honestly, yeah, they have three cars that are locked in, but we have three race teams that have extremely fast race cars that take control of these races," Preece added.
"So if you're gonna try to win this race, I guarantee you're gonna have to go through an RFK car to win. I feel like we're in a strong position to get one of our cars in and good luck to the other ones that are gonna have to get through us."
Preece has flipped multiple times in the last few trips to Daytona International Speedway, but he is not short on confidence ahead of Saturday night's regular-season finale. The veteran driver has the best equipment of his career, and he has two superspeedway winners as teammates.
Chris Buescher won this race two seasons ago to close out the regular season. Brad Keselowski won the summer Daytona race back in 2016.
Like Preece, Buescher and Keselowski are both in must-win situations. Pointing their way into the playoffs is no longer possible, which means that only one RFK Racing car can secure one of the two remaining spots.
And while this is not what the team hoped for at the start of the season, that doesn't mean they are planning on wrecking each other to gain an advantage.
The goal for Saturday night's race is to dominate and ensure that they are in a position to put one of the three RFK Racing cars into the playoffs while eliminating either Bowman or Reddick.
"Does it change the way our race goes? Probably not really because we all need to be up front and having an opportunity to win," Buescher said. "So that puts each of our individual best interests at RFK aligned, that we all just want to work together and make good decisions and be up front at the end and, like Ryan said, you're not just racing your teammates.
"That's not what we're trying to accomplish here. We're racing the field, but as a racer and as competitors you want to be a part of those highlight moments in sports. That doesn't mean you have to wreck anybody to get in. It means you have good, hard racing and you put a tire mark on a door down to the line and look back and say, 'Man, that was a good race.' So, we're just trying to get to that point."