RICHMOND, Va. — Daniel Dye’s NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series playoff fate hinged on overcoming a five-point deficit in Saturday’s season finale at Richmond Raceway. He knew defensive driving wouldn’t get him anywhere and decided being constantly updated on the provisional standings wouldn’t help him, either.

He ultimately made it, becoming the first Truck Series driver to advance to the postseason pool from below the elimination line in the final round. He finished eighth in the Clean Harbors 250, edging out Tanner Gray as the final qualifier for the 10-driver playoff field. Gray was the first driver eliminated, trailing Dye by 12 points after finishing 12th.

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Dye, the 20-year-old competing in his second season in the Truck Series, stuck to his plan of keeping his focus forward – without the ever-changing details in the No. 43 team’s radio transmissions about where his rivals were racing.

“I said earlier in the week that I really don’t want to know what’s going on with anybody else,” Dye said after the race after securing his first playoff spot. “Once you start getting defensive, you kind of get in the way of your potential. So no, after we got quite a few stage points to get going, I started thinking about it a little bit more so maybe we didn’t have to be as aggressive, but no, I kept asking myself one question. Then it’s just, when you’re behind, you have to go on the offensive. If you’re 15 or 20 (points) ahead before the race, you might be able to go on the defensive a little bit, but when you’re five points behind, you have to get to work.”

Sixth and third places in the stages made the difference for Dye, who picked up 13 stage points while Gray came away empty-handed in the breaks. Gray started 26th after his No. 15 Tricon Garage team struggled with early issues – including brake problems in practice and qualifying – and he benefited from a mid-race caution period to get back on the lead lap.

“Overall, we’ve just been too sloppy all year,” Gray said. “I made a lot of mistakes, myself included, and just never should have gotten in the position to even be on the (elimination line). I think with all the resources and tools we have at Tricon Garage and Toyota, we’re definitely a playoff-caliber team, and it seems like year after year we find a way to screw it up. So we definitely need to look in the mirror and reflect on ourselves and figure out where we need to be better, where we can be better overall, and just iron out any mistakes that are setting us too far back. We just need to get better.”

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Dye joins the 10-rider field alongside regular season champion Christian Eckes, top seed Corey Heim, Saturday’s winner Ty Majeski, Nick Sanchez, Rajah Caruth, Tyler Ankrum, Grant Enfinger, Taylor Gray and defending champion Ben Rhodes. Taylor Gray and Rhodes were the only other riders to take the win on points, with the former having already been in the first stage and Rhodes securing his shot at a third championship title in four years with a 34-point lead.

“I’m actually pretty relaxed,” said Rhodes, who had a 22-point lead going into Saturday night’s race. “I’ve been in a lot more stressful situations than this, so I guess you could say ‘forged by fire’ over the years. We’ve been in situations where we were in the tiebreaker, one point ahead of the weekend spread, so this was a luxury — 22 points, I wasn’t really stressed. I just knew we had to execute on the things we could control. Fortunately for us, everything we couldn’t control went in our favor tonight. There were a few close calls, but for the most part we came here with a better program than we’ve had the last few weeks, which gives us a lot of momentum heading into the playoffs.”

Heim, who finished 16th, was seeded No. 1 based on his five regular-season wins. Eckes, who won three times this year, earned a 15-point playoff bonus for winning the regular-season title. He is just three points behind Heim for No. 2.

“I think the most important thing for us is the bonus points. That obviously helps a lot,” said Eckes, who secured the crown with victory in the first stage. “So it’s exciting to win the championship, but at the same time we still have a lot of work to do to get the really big win at the end of the year. As I said, I’m proud of the guys, but there’s still a lot of work to do.”