Trio of Joe Gibbs Racing teammates fighting for last NASCAR O'Reilly Series Chase spot

If you thought your work meetings were awkward this week, you have nothing on the NASCAR O'Reilly Auto Parts Series teams at Joe Gibbs Racing. 

William Sawalich, Brent Crews and Taylor Gray enter Friday's Winn-Dixie 250 11th, 12th and 13th, respectively in the series standings. Friday's race is the 24th of the 2026 season and also the regular season finale. The top 12 drivers in the standings after Daytona make the Chase and will fight for a championship over the final nine races of the season. 

See the problem? 

Sawalich and Crews are each only one point above Gray. Sawalich and Gray have both been to victory lane this year — Sawalich at Rockingham on April 4 and Gray at Kansas on April 18 — but Crews is still looking for his first career win. 

Crews' season has actually been quite impressive. He's in position to make the postseason despite missing four races at the start of the season because he was not yet 18 years old, the minimum age to race on tracks longer than a mile in the O'Reilly Series. 

After a very poor showing in his rookie season last year, Sawalich has turned things around in 2026. However, inconsistency has bitten the No. 18 team this season, leaving it fighting for its Chase life this weekend. 

Gray won last year and looked like a potential championship contender at the end of April. But inconsistency has also been the story of his season, putting him on the outside looking in at the Chase field going into Daytona. 

It is a possibility that all three JGR drivers make the postseason if 10th-place Sam Mayer, who is 19 points above the Chase cut line, gets caught up in a wreck. In the same vein, two JGR drivers could miss the Chase if they have a bad result and Rajah Caruth puts together a good points day. 

Taylor Gray's Daytona mentality

"Winning races takes care of everything, and I think that's kind of been my mentality all year," Gray said Wednesday on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. "Going into this weekend, it is pretty simple for us. We got to go run well in both stages and have a good finish to advance. If we don't make it, it's not because we went to Daytona. We've had three-quarters of a year to figure it out, and shame on me for being in this position, but we are."

At superspeedways such as Daytona, drivers often work with teammates or at least manufacturer teammates in the draft. Gray said he, Sawalich and Crews haven't had a conversation about their strategy for Friday's race. 

"Us teammates haven't really discussed much about it," Gray said. "We're always fairly good at, when we get to the track on Friday, all sitting down as a JGR group and kind of getting a plan together. It's very rare that that plan ever comes together just with how things work out, but it's always good to have one and be prepared."

Much to the chagrin of Joe Gibbs, Friday's race may come down to three of his drivers fighting each other not only for a race win, but an opportunity to race for a title. Gibbs can only hope it ends in at least two of his cars making the Chase, rather than all three being towed back to the garage.