Ryan Blaney, Martin Truex Jr. racing for playoff spots

There will be a battle within the bigger battle in Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course (2:30 p.m. ET on NBC).

Entering the 200-mile race over Indy’s 2.4-mile road course, Ryan Blaney and Martin Truex Jr. hold the 15th and 16th positions on the potential Cup Series playoff list. Fourteen drivers have earned playoff spots by winning races; Blaney and Truex currently qualify on points.

With five races remaining in the regular season, it’s possible that a new winner (or more than one) can join the list by reaching victory lane. If not, Blaney, Truex and drivers just below the cutoff line (currently Kevin Harvick and Aric Almirola) will be shooting to qualify via points.

Blaney and Truex have had disappointing seasons. Blaney has had seven top-five finishes but none in the top two. Truex hasn’t reached the top three. His only top fives are a pair of fourths and a fifth.

Truex, 16th in the standings, gained on Blaney last week and starts Sunday’s race 22 points behind the Ford driver. Truex is 83 points in front of Harvick, the first driver out of the playoff list.

“Obviously, it’s not the spot we want to be in,” Truex told NBC Sports Saturday. “We’d love to have a win by now and feel like we should have, but it’s just been one of those seasons where when we have cars good enough to win, we haven’t done all the other things right. We’ve had some bad luck, as well. But that’s part of racing.

“We just have to take advantage of the opportunities when we have them, and we haven’t been able to do that. (Sunday is) gonna be a tough day, but we’ll battle through it and try to get the best out of what we can.”

Truex was not happy with his qualifying run. He’ll start 25th. Blaney was in the