Well, obviously we need to talk about the budding rivalry between Brad Keselowski and Kyle Busch.
I kid, I kid. We’ll be covering what led to this (and what followed):
The Winner
Alex Bowman. Already eliminated from the playoffs, so doesn’t affect the championship directly, but big win for the Hendrick man.
The Race
Well, you see…
For a long time, it was Chase Elliott’s to lose. He took the first stage. He took the second stage. He raced well enough, early enough, to lock himself into the championship on points, and he was still up front late in the race when he got spun by Keselowski. By that point, though, it had switched to a Denny Hamlin day.
Hamlin failed inspection on the first two tries, making him start from the rear of the field, which is a lot more significant at Martinsville than at, say, Daytona, where drivers will sometimes voluntarily drive in the rear early to avoid getting caught in a disaster up front. It’s crowded at Martinsville. It takes a while to work through the field. Hamlin did it, though, and he was up front, with some intense points racing going on between Keselowski, Busch, and Martin Truex Jr. just a short ways behind him for the presumed fourth and final spot in the championship.
At some point in the series of restarts, Bowman became Hamlin’s primary foe, and while Bowman tried to race the leader clean, on one of his attempts to cut under the 11 car, he got loose in the corner, spinning Hamlin and sending him back in the pack. Hamlin was fine on making the championship, but he wasn’t happy, and with non-playoff drivers causing headaches for playoff drivers a theme of the last few weeks (our stance, which seems like the reasonable one to us, is that if you’re having non-playoff drivers in the race, you can’t ask them not to race)…well, you can see the video above. And you’ll see more below.
Bowman did hold on to win, effectively driving away from Busch over the overtime restart while Truex nabbed the last playoff spot by just three points, aided immensely by both Aric Almirola and…I think it was William Byron…choosing the inside rather than the outside, allowing him to restart fourth when he had been sixth.
Results
Top ten, other playoff drivers:
Busch finished second.
Keselowski was third.
Truex was fourth.
Byron was fifth.
Almirola was sixth.
Kurt Busch was seventh.
Erik Jones was eighth.
Chris Buescher was ninth.
Joey Logano could never really get it going, finishing tenth and finding himself eliminated from the field.
Ryan Blaney had issues all day and wasn’t helped by some contact with Austin Dillon. Blaney finished eleventh and was also eliminated, making it an all-Gibbs and Hendrick championship as all three Penske cars made the Round of 8 and failed to get through it.
Elliott finished 16th.
Standings
Larson, Elliott, Hamlin, and Truex will start next week even. Winner (between those four) wins, losers lose (I don’t think the stage points matter for the Championship 4 next week, but someone correct me if I’m wrong and I’ll update this). For the final Round of 8 standings, though:
1. Larson (advanced by winning)
2. Elliott (cleared cut line by 32 points)
3. Hamlin (cleared cut line by 8 points)
4. Truex (cleared cut line by 3 points)
5. Busch (missed cut line by 3 points)
6. Keselowski (missed cut line by 8 points)
7. Blaney (missed cut line by 20 points)
8. Logano (missed cut line by 42 points)
Thoughts, Implications, Up Next
Larson and Elliott are the favorites next week, with Hendrick’s success this year presumably a large factor. Still, Gibbs cars have won four of the seven races at Phoenix these last four years, with Truex winning this March. It’s an open race, and being NASCAR, things can go wrong. For Hamlin, emotions are particularly high. He’s 40 years old, and despite a lot of career success, he’s never won a season title.
Bowman/Hamlin Feud
Let’s go with feud. Beef sounds too silly for this. I want real anger!
Here’s what happened:
Here are more views of the post-race scene (watch for the beer can in the first):
Here, and this is the best part, are Hamlin’s postrace comments:
Here are Bowman’s:
Here was one happy man in the wake of the initial spin:
Overall, it seems like Hamlin’s probably right to be mad—Bowman did fail to drive the car well in that moment, Hamlin paid the price—and Bowman’s also not entirely guilty—it wasn’t intentional, he just messed up. It’s an awkward thing, because there’s kind of this etiquette there until it isn’t there. NASCAR doesn’t want to crack down on all wrecking of opponents, because that would fundamentally change races and make it a lot more boring, but it also doesn’t want it to get out of control. So, generally, they let the drivers police it themselves until it gets, in their view, out of hand. This is probably the best way to do it. I can’t think of anything better. And in entertainment value, it clearly crushes it, because…look at that video up top again. That was awesome. Man.
Keselowski/Busch Feud
We’re not going to post Busch’s comments about Keselowski, because he called Keselowski a slur that’s demeaning to people with mental and developmental disabilities (the r-word), but on the final lap, the two were jostling, and Busch cut in front of him after the finish line which led to Keselowski spinning Busch. My impression is that these guys don’t love each other already (this is par for the course with each of them and the field), so it was kind of just a natural happening, and not actually anything new except it raises the probability of one of them racing the other that much harder at some point next week or next year. More likely Busch wrecking Keselowski than vice versa.
The Other Stuff
Blaney/Dillon contact:
More Blaney trouble later:
Sad Blaney:
Hamlin had trouble on a restart:
The Elliott spin by Keselowski:
Sad Brad:
Truex connects with Keselowski’s bumper here (hard to see, but made some big damage on Truex’s front corner):
And he connects with the wall here (not hard to see):
But all’s well that ends well:
