Following Saturday night at Bristol Motor Speedway, 12 NASCAR Cup Series drivers can breath a big sigh of relief after making it to the Round of 12 in the 2023 playoffs.
After an exhilarating race weekend, four NASCAR drivers, including Joey Logano and Kevin Harvick, are now left wondering “what if” as the other 12 advance to the next round of competition following the NASCAR Cup Series Bass Pro Shops Night Race .
Denny Hamlin parked his Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota in victory lane after the 500-lap endurance test at the concrete half-mile and solidified his spot as a true contender for the title this season. Hamlin led 142 laps en route to his third win of 2023, third triumph at Bristol and 51st of his career.
“My team has just been kick ass this whole first round,” Hamlin said. “It’s just amazing how good our team has been. I’m so happy about the way we’re running right now and I can’t wait to keep this roll going.”
Hamlin has been in contention for the title before, but does he feel like there’s something different about this group he has behind him in 2023?
“It’s our year,” he said. “I just feel like we’ve got it all put together. We’ve got the speed at every type of race track and there’s nothing to stop us at this point.”
Kyle Larson, who also won during the first round of the playoffs, came home second after leading 20 laps in the event, but had nothing for Hamlin down the stretch.
“Denny was just really good,” Larson said. “His car was good and he did a really good job through traffic. I feel like I ran as good as I could through that last run of the race but I just didn’t have the pace he did.”
Christopher Bell, Chris Buescher and rookie Ty Gibbs completed the top five.
Two of those four that didn’t move on to the round of 12 are former Cup Series champions in 2014 titlist Kevin Harvick and defending champ Joey Logano. The other two are champions of the sport’s biggest race, the Daytona 500, in Michael McDowell and Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
Nobody had Harvick and Logano failing to advance out of the first round of the playoffs, but the performance in the last three races put them into a situation where it could be possible.
In the case of Logano, he was in a position, albeit a close one, to advance but was involved in a wreck on lap 262 which damaged his Team Penske Ford and knocked him out of the race.
“Obviously, it’s a real bummer,” Logano said. “You get knocked out of the race and drive behind the wall, you’re in denial for a minute. You don’t want to believe that it happened. Running 15th is uncharacteristic for us but we’re a little lost at the moment. This is the same team that won the championship last year so we’ll figure it out.”
For Harvick, who’s now in the final ten races of his two-decade Cup Series career, Saturday night was also uncharacteristic of his Stewart-Haas team. The number 4 car finished five laps off the pace, and Harvick didn’t mince words afterwards.
“We’ve been like this all year,” Harvick said. “We’ve been hit-or-miss and tonight (Saturday) we just missed by a mile. I’ve had some good days and some bad days here (at Bristol), but this was probably the worst I’ve had with fenders on my car.”
Not finding victory lane heading into the playoffs, Harvick was seeded 15th and didn’t feel confident that his team could challenge for the title.
“I didn’t have many expectations,” he said. “With as up-and-down as the year has been, it is what it is. That’s probably about what we deserve.”
Both Harvick and Logano were in position to advance before Saturday night’s race while Martin Truex Jr. and Bubba Wallace were on the outside looking in. However, when the race ended, Truex and Wallace had raced their ways to the next round.
Truex was the regular-season champion and has had an absolutely abysmal first round of the playoffs, so to come home 19th on Saturday and advance has him feeling a little bit better right now.
“It was a tough night,” Truex said. “I didn’t feel great. When the race started off, I felt pretty good. We qualified well which is good for us at Bristol. We were good early but once we lost our track position in stage two, it just became a battle. I was really, really tight.”
From that point on, Truex and his Joe Gibbs Racing team battled hard to get everything they could.
“We were lucky to get through it tonight,” he said. “Going back to all the bonus points we had, that’s really the name of the game and that’s what saved our butts. Hopefully we can dodge some bad luck in the next round and not have any catastrophic situations like we did in this one.”
Wallace entered Bristol 19 markers out and just worked and worked and worked with his 23XI Racing team to come home 14th.
“I’m mentally exhausted,” Wallace said after the race. “I’m worn out. We gave it our all tonight. We battled hard and executed and that’s what you’ve got to do.”
Wallace is another driver who now knows he has three races to try and get the best finishes possible, if not a win, to make the Round of 8.
“We know next week’s a reset,” he said. “We just have to go out and have some fun and work our asses off. On to next week.”
NASCAR Cup Series Race – Bass Pro Shops Night Race
Bristol Motor Speedway
Bristol, Tennessee
Saturday, September 16, 2023
1. (2) Denny Hamlin (P), Toyota, 500.
2. (36) Kyle Larson (P), Chevrolet, 500.
3. (1) Christopher Bell (P), Toyota, 500.
4. (20) Chris Buescher (P), Ford, 500.
5. (8) Ty Gibbs #, Toyota, 500.
6. (4) Michael McDowell (P), Ford, 500.
7. (7) Chase Elliott (P), Chevrolet, 500.
8. (6) Brad Keselowski (P), Ford, 500.
9. (3) William Byron (P), Chevrolet, 500.
10. (25) Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (P), Chevrolet, 500.
11. (16) Carson Hocevar(i), Chevrolet, 499.
12. (17) Ryan Preece, Ford, 499.
13. (13) Alex Bowman, Chevrolet, 499.
14. (9) Bubba Wallace (P), Toyota, 499.
15. (12) Tyler Reddick (P), Toyota, 499.
16. (30) Todd Gilliland, Ford, 499.
17. (18) Austin Dillon, Chevrolet, 499.
18. (26) Aric Almirola, Ford, 499.
19. (5) Martin Truex Jr. (P), Toyota, 498.
20. (15) Kyle Busch (P), Chevrolet, 498.
21. (24) Daniel Suarez, Chevrolet, 498.
22. (11) Ryan Blaney (P), Ford, 498.
23. (23) Ross Chastain (P), Chevrolet, 498.
24. (31) Erik Jones, Chevrolet, 497.
25. (10) Corey LaJoie, Chevrolet, 497.
26. (35) JJ Yeley(i), Ford, 495.
27. (14) Chase Briscoe, Ford, 495.
28. (32) Harrison Burton, Ford, 495.
29. (21) Kevin Harvick (P), Ford, 495.
30. (22) AJ Allmendinger, Chevrolet, 491.
31. (34) BJ McLeod(i), Chevrolet, 490.
32. (29) Austin Cindric, Ford, 488.
33. (33) Ty Dillon, Chevrolet, Accident, 263.
34. (28) Joey Logano (P), Ford, Accident, 262.
35. (19) Justin Haley, Chevrolet, Accident, 261.
36. (27) Ryan Newman, Ford, Accident, 260.
Average Speed of Race Winner: 94.99 mph.
Time of Race: 2 Hrs, 48 Mins, 20 Secs. Margin of Victory: 2.437 Seconds.
Caution Flags: 6 for 53 laps.
Lead Changes: 10 among 6 drivers.
Lap Leaders: C. Bell (P) 1-71;C. LaJoie 72-119;C. Bell (P) 120-178;K. Larson (P) 179-198;C. Bell (P) 199-255;T. Gibbs # 256-353;D. Hamlin (P) 354;T. Gibbs # 355-358;D. Hamlin (P) 359-364;C. Buescher (P) 365;D. Hamlin (P) 366-500.
Leaders Summary (Driver, Times Lead, Laps Led): Christopher Bell (P) 3 times for 187 laps; Denny Hamlin (P) 3 times for 142 laps; Ty Gibbs # 2 times for 102 laps; Corey LaJoie 1 time for 48 laps; Kyle Larson (P) 1 time for 20 laps; Chris Buescher (P) 1 time for 1 lap.
Stage #1 Top Ten: 20,7,23,24,45,1,6,5,19,54
Stage #2 Top Ten: 20,54,5,11,42,34,17,24,41,9
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