Not a whole lot of fireworks, but one big one (along with a whole lot of good racing) made that feel like a very good thing.
The Winner
Brad Keselowski got it done in the end.
The Race
The story of the day was guys racing hard for stage points, which says a lot about the success of NASCAR’s stage system as an incentive for exciting midrace racing. Unfortunately, this resulted in Joey Logano going airborne and somehow not getting nailed while upside down at the end of the first stage, but thankfully, he was fine.
There were a number of leaders. It often looked like we were heading for a playoff shakeup. Matt DiBenedetto took the first stage. Bubba Wallace took the second. But on an overtime restart, DiBenedetto couldn’t hold on, and Keselowski ran away in the end.
Notable Names
William Byron finished 2nd.
Michael McDowell was 3rd.
Kevin Harvick was 4th.
DiBenedetto came in 5th.
Tyler Reddick was 7th.
Austin Dillon was 8th.
Ryan Blaney was 9th.
Cole Custer was 10th.
Chase Briscoe was 11th.
Ryan Newman had a double-pit-road-speeding penalty, meaning he sped on pit road then sped again on the mandated passthrough. He stayed on the lead lap and came in 13th.
Aric Almirola was a factor for a while, but got into some fuel limitations and ended up 15th.
Christopher Bell was 17th.
Kyle Busch and Wallace tried grabbing fresh tires for the overtime restart, and while they each made up ground and had a few runs, no one joined them, the field was too chaotic in front of them to make it through, and they finished 18th and 19th.
Chris Buescher was 21st.
Chase Elliott had some issues—I missed exactly what happened with him, but it may have been that his car just wasn’t great—and came in 24th.
Erik Jones was a factor towards the end but got involved in late contact, coming in 27th.
Martin Truex Jr. had a late flat tire (which eventually rolled off the car with something like four laps left, setting up the overtime restart) and came in 31st.
Denny Hamlin did the same double-speeding thing on pit road Newman did, but he did it first, then hit the wall at the end of the second stage. He was 32nd.
Ricky Stenhouse Jr. was 33rd.
Kurt Busch caught fire at one point, finished the race, and wound up 35th.
Alex Bowman couldn’t get back on the track after one of the wrecks (forget which one but maybe the end-of-stage-two one?) and came in 38th.
Logano was 39th.
Kyle Larson’s car blew up pretty much immediately. He was 40th.
Standings
Ten races down, 16 to go before the playoffs. That’s a lot of races. These are unofficial (gotta do inspections and whatnot, so if something changes that’s probably what it was), but…
1. Truex (2 wins)
2. Logano (1 win)
3. Byron (1 win)
4. Blaney (1 win)
5. Keselowski (1 win)
6. Larson (1 win)
7. Bell (1 win)
8. McDowell (1 win)
9. Bowman (1 win)
10. Hamlin (229 points ahead of first driver out)
11. Harvick (91 points ahead of first driver out)
12. Elliott (89 points ahead of first driver out)
13. Kyle Busch (54 points ahead of first driver out)
14. Dillon (51 points ahead of first driver out)
15. Stenhouse (12 points ahead of first driver out)
16. Buescher (last driver in, 12 points ahead of first driver out)
17. DiBenedetto (first driver out, 12 points behind last driver in)
18. Kurt Busch (13 points behind last driver in)
19. Newman (31 points behind last driver in)
20. Wallace (33 points behind last driver in)
…
22. Reddick (38 points behind last driver in)
23. Custer (51 points behind last driver in)
…
26. Almirola (70 points behind last driver in)
27. Jones (72 points behind last driver in)
28. Briscoe (74 points behind last driver in)
Thoughts, Implications
Fun to see DiBenedetto and Wallace win stages, since they’re both likable. Each significantly closed the playoff gap. Interesting that Stenhouse and Buescher are both so close, too, since even a one-off, out-of-the-top-16 winner wouldn’t immediately change the playoff cut line right now. Austin Dillon probably isn’t actually safe, but 51 points is a lot of cushion, so at the moment, it seems like there are 13 or 14 relatively safe playoff drivers and then eleven that wouldn’t be at all surprising for those last two spots. Not that the guys in the gaps can’t do it themselves, too. They’d just, I think, be more surprising to a casual fan (which includes me).
What’s Next
Kansas next week.
Videos, Fun Stuff, the Logano Wreck
Harrison Burton’s gas can came with him:
The Logano wreck:
Wallace almost completely dodging the Logano wreck:
The Kurt Busch fire:
Kyle Busch averting disaster:
The end-of-stage-two wreck:
Blaney cleaning garbage off his grill:
Stenhouse getting sent into the wall on the way to pit road:
Nearly a massive disaster towards the end:
The finish, which is honestly rather representative of a lot of the racing early in the race:
This makes sense and also blew my mind:
