Sports Time Radio

Tonight at the Daytona International Speedway the NASCAR Monster Energy Series will have their regular season finale. It’s the Coke Zero Sugar 400 and since it’s at Daytona we should see cars going 200 plus miles an hour and probably “the big one” at some point.

Now after tonight’s race will know the 16 drivers that will advance into the playoffs. There are 14 different drivers that have won a race and have an automatic entry into the playoffs, but as of right now the other two playoff spots will be determined by points.

Kevin Harvick is currently sitting in the 15th spot and looks like he’ll be a lock to get into the playoffs, but what about that last spot. Heading into tonight’s race Tyler Reddick is currently in that 16th and final playoff spot, but he’s just 25 points ahead of his teammate Austin Dillion. That final playoff spot could also go to a driver that hasn’t won a race just yet this season. Would that be a huge surprise if that happens at Daytona?

If we do happen to get a new winner tonight then Harvick would be the driver to get tat final playoff spot and Reddick as well as Dillion would be on the outside looking in unless they where the driver would ended up in victory lane tonight.

There are going to be a lot of drivers with just one way to get into the playoffs tonight; so they’ll have nothing to lose. That should make for an interesting race and I’m sure some hurt feelings during the race. It might also have drivers taking more chances than they normally would and could lead to more accidents than we’re used to seeing at Daytona; if that’s possible.

Points leader Kyle Larson starts on the pole tonight and his Hendrick Motorsports teammate William Bryon will be starting next to him in the 2nd spot. They followed by two drivers from Joe Gibbs Racing as Denny Hamlin will start 3rd and Kyle Busch will be starting 4th. There’s a third Hendrick Motorsports river starting i the Top 5 as Chase Elliott will start tonight’s race in the 5th position.

All five of those drivers have won at least one race this season; so they’re all locked into the playoffs. The first driver without a win is Matt DiBenedetto who drivers the Wood Brothers Racing #21 car and is starting 9th tonight. DiBenedetto is not only driving tonight to try and get into the playoffs, but he currently doesn’t have a ride for next season; so if he can find a way to win tonight he might be able to resolve both of those problems.

There are actually two races scheduled at the Daytona International Speedway today. NASCAR’s Xfinity series is schedule to run the Wawa 250 first. The Xfinity race has a scheduled start time of 11:30 a.m. Then the Monster Energy Series takes the track for their race which has a scheduled start time of 6:00 p.m. The Xfinity race will be airing live on the NBC Sports Network while the live broadcast of NASCAR’s Monster Energy Series will move over to air live on NBC.

Let me know how this race is going to go and who you think is going to win. Do you think will see one of the drivers who already has a win get another one tonight? Or will we see some find a way to get themselves and their team into the playoffs with a bit of a surprising win tonight?

Yesterday on the Sports Time Radio podcast Schaumburg Stu made his predictions for the weekend and he got off to a good start last night. Schaumburg Stu had the Chicago White Sox beating the Chicago Cubs and even though the Cubs got out to a very quick 6-0 lead the White Sox rebounded for a 17-13 win. Yasmani Grandal returned from the IL for the White Sox last night and hit two home runs and had 8 RBI’s in last nights game.

So with a win already under his belt here’s what Schaumburg Stu went with for the rest of this weekend. Today Schaumburg Stu has the Tennessee Titans beating the Chicago Bears in Week 3 NFL pre-season action. Tonight he also has Lance Lynn getting more combined innings pitched and strikeout tonight for the White Sox than Alec Mills does for the Cubs. Then on Sunday Schaumburg Stu has the White Sox and the Cubs combining to score more than 7 1/2 runs in their game.

Last week Schaumburg Stu went 2-2 o his picks and since we started doing this on the Sports Time Radio Podcast Schaumburg Stu has a overall record of 58-51 heading into this weekend.

Now if you’d like to listen to the Sports Time Radio podcast it airs live on the BlogTalkRadio.com network. If for some reason you miss the live edition of the podcast don’t worry. All you have to do is head on over to TuneIn.com and you can listen to the podcast any time you want to.

The podcast airs live multiple times during the week, but Schaumburg Stu makes his picks on the Friday podcast; so you’ll have to tune in then to hear them live.

I’m also on Twitter if you want to look me up there; I am @Burketime.