NASCAR: Bowman spins Hamlin, holds off Busch in Martinsville

Alex Bowman spun out leader Denny Hamlin with 6 laps to go, then survived a green-white-checker finish to beat Kyle Busch and Brad Keselowski to win the Xfinity 500 NASCAR Cup race at Martinsville.

Martin Truex Jr and William Byron  rounded out the top-5.

WHO’S IN

Kyle Larson (two wins), Chase Elliott (points), Denny Hamlin (points), and Martin Truex Jr. (points) are all headed to Phoenix next week with a chance to battle for the championship. Larson was the only driver locked in before the Martinsville race after his win at Texas Motor Speedway to open the Round of 8. His win last week at Kansas Speedway prevented anyone else from clinching a spot before Martinsville. Elliott officially clinched his spot in the Championship 4 after his second stage win Sunday at Martinsville. Hamlin’s 24th-place finish at Martinsville and Truex’s fourth-place finish on Sunday made it a Hendrick Motorsports-vs.-Joe Gibbs Racing final.

WHO’S OUT

Kyle Busch (minus-3), Brad Keselowski (minus-8), Ryan Blaney (minus-20) and Joey Logano (minus-42) were eliminated from championship contention after Sunday’s race at Martinsville. Tough day for Team Penske as all three of their drivers failed to make it to the Championship 4. Meanwhile, Busch could not catch up to Bowman and will miss the Championship 4 for the second straight year. Keselowski will miss out on a final title chance with Team Penske as he transitions to Roush Fenway Racing as a driver-owner next year. Blaney has yet to make it to a Championship 4, despite 2021 being arguably his best season as a Cup driver. Logano continues his pattern on making the Championship 4 in even, not odd years.

Hamlin calls Bowman a ‘Hack’

As Bowman tried to start a burnout to celebrate his fourth NASCAR Cup Series victory of the season and his first at the 0.526-mile short track, Hamlin drove to the frontstretch and expressed his displeasure by twice blocking the progress of Bowman’s No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet.

“I just got loose in,” Bowman said of the accident that gave him the lead. “I got in too deep (into Turn 3), knocked him out of the way and literally let him have the lead back. For anybody that wants to think I was trying to crash him, obviously that wasn’t the case, considering I literally gave up the lead at Martinsville to give it back to him.

“He’s been on the other side of that. He’s crashed guys here for wins. I hate doing it. Obviously, I don’t want to crash somebody. I just got in, got underneath him, spun him out… Regardless, we get a free grandfather clock (trophy), which is pretty special.”

By the time Bowman took the checkered flag, his teammate, defending Cup champion Chase Elliott already had clinched a spot in next Sunday’s Championship 4 race at Phoenix by sweeping the first two stages of the event.

Elliott joins another teammate, two-time Round of 8 winner Kyle Larson, Hamlin and Martin Truex Jr. in the quartet that will vie for the series title at the one-mile track in the Sonoran Desert.

With a damaged car that had slapped the outside wall at the exit of Turn 2 on Lap 471, Truex eked out his berth in the championship race by three points over Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Kyle Busch, who finished second to Truex’s fourth but lost his slim pre-race advantage in the first two stages.

Eliminated from the Playoff with Busch were the Team Penske Fords of Brad Keselowski (third Sunday and eight points below the cutoff), Ryan Blaney and Joey Logano.

Hamlin, who started from the rear after his car twice failed pre-race inspection, had enough of a margin entering the race that his 24th-place finishing position didn’t cost him a chance at the championship. But that was little consolation for the lost opportunity to add to his collection of five grandfather clocks.

“He’s just a hack,” Hamlin said of the race winner. “Just an absolute hack. He gets his ass kicked by his teammates every week. He’s (expletive) terrible. He’s just terrible. He sees one opportunity, he takes it.

“Obviously, he’s got the fast car of the week and he runs 10th. He didn’t want to race us there. We had a good, clean race. I moved up as high as I could on the race track to give him all the room I could—he still can’t drive.”

Lane choice helped Truex gain the final four after Aric Almirola got loose and forced him up the track on Lap 471, costing Truex positions and the eventual scrape with the wall. Truex gained spots on the subsequent restart on Lap 478 and chose the outside lane—directly behind Busch—for the final restart on Lap 500.

“I have no idea how we finished fourth,” Truex said of the contact with the wall. “I’m going to buy a lottery ticket on the way home.”

Even though Busch struggled with the handling of his No. 18 Toyota throughout the afternoon at Martinsville, he blamed his 28th-place finish last weekend at Kansas for his failure to advance to the Championship 4 Round.

“We just missed last week,” said the two-time series champion—and the only active driver with more than one title. “That’s where we lost all the ground. Could have come in here with 15 more points, we would have been fine on the cut. Just wasn’t it. Wasn’t meant to be. Obviously, it was Truex’s day. We had a Hail Mary opportunity there at the end. Just didn’t materialize.

“All in all, just proud of the effort for sure. We slung everything and anything at this thing today, couldn’t really make it come alive. Great effort. That was there, for sure. We’ve just got to get better, everybody included, the whole team, in order to be able to go race with the best and race for a championship. We’re not going to do that this year.”

Neither will Bowman, who was eliminated from the Playoffs in the Round of 12. But the victory at NASCAR’s most venerable track, which will celebrate its 75th anniversary next year, was ample compensation.

Post-Race Quotes

Alex Bowman

His word to me, Wow. Why the contact with Denny Hamlin? What happened there?

ALEX BOWMAN: I just got loose in. I got in too deep, knocked him out of the way and literally let him have the lead back. For anybody that wants to think I was trying to crash him, obviously wasn’t the case considering I literally gave up the lead at Martinsville to give it back to him.

He’s been on the other side of that. He’s crashed guys here for wins. I hate doing it. Obviously I don’t want to crash somebody. I just got in, got underneath him, spun him out.

Regardless, we get a free grandfather clock, which is pretty special. I struggled here for a long time. I was trying to get the flag, do a backwards victory lap. Mark Martin thinks that’s cool. Mark Martin is my hero. Obviously, like I said, hate we wrecked the 11. But how about that for Chevrolet, Ally, everybody on this 48 team. 48 car won here a bunch. Cool to do it again.

To clarify, there was or was not intent in your second contact with Denny?

ALEX BOWMAN: No, I just got loose underneath. I’m not trying to drive underneath there and crash the guy. I got under him fair, under him clean. I just got sideways underneath him, spun him out. Hate to do that. Obviously unintentional. Part of short-track racing.

As you’re celebrating, he pulls up to you. What was your reaction to that?

ALEX BOWMAN: Man, I wasn’t going to get into it. This isn’t Bowman Gray Stadium. This is the Cup Series. As much as we could have made the highlight reel, we might climb the fence here because I want to see, the fence might come down. One of those deals.

Kyle Busch

Kyle, you finished the day second. A strong run. Looked almost impossible most of the day. You’ll be three points short today.

KYLE BUSCH: We just missed last week. That’s where we lost all the ground. Could have come in here with 15 more points, we would have been fine on the cut. Just wasn’t it. Wasn’t meant to be. Obviously it was Truex’s day. We had a Hail Mary opportunity there at the end. Just didn’t materialize.

All in all, just proud of the effort for sure. We slung everything and anything at this thing today, couldn’t really make it come alive. Great effort. That was there for sure. We just got to get better, everybody included, the whole team, in order to be able to go race with the best and race for a championship. We’re not going to do that this year.

How will you look back on this season not being able to race for the championship next week?

KYLE BUSCH: Anytime you go into a season with Toyota, Joe Gibbs Racing, this 18, M&M’s team, myself, you expect to be Championship 4, in contention, eligible. Anything other than that is a failure. Guess you get an F.

Denny Hamlin

THE MODERATOR: Questions for Denny.

Your race in general, start in the back. You said you were pretty confident you could make it all the way to the front. How much pace does it take for you? How satisfied were you in doing what you said you would do by being able to get up there and fight for a victory?

DENNY HAMLIN: Yeah, I mean, we’ve just didn’t really strong on these short tracks. No matter how far we’re down in horsepower, how much better Hendrick cars are in general, we’re fighting and we’re clawing and we’re still finding ourselves with a shot to win each week.

I knew that our 750 program in general has just been a lot better than the 550 this year. Some of the advantages that the Chevys have, it’s not as big, it doesn’t show up as much on tracks like this. You’re able to just kind of finesse your way around the track.

Obviously it wasn’t ideal starting in the back. I knew pretty early that after an adjustment or two it was a good enough car to go up there and contend.

You’re a native Virginian, had a lot of success here. Didn’t do anything wrong here today, I don’t think. Are you surprised at the fan reaction to you, how you’re getting booed right now?

DENNY HAMLIN: It’s just Chase Elliott fans, man. They don’t think straightly.

Does that bother you?

DENNY HAMLIN: No, not at all. They’re going to boo the shit out of me next week, I can tell you that.

Early in the race when you were back in the back, the 6 car incident, how close was that?

DENNY HAMLIN: It was close. It was closer than I certainly wanted to be for sure. Yeah, that’s the tough part. When you get back there, you’re not worried about really yourself causing an incident or whatever. Back there, those guys are fighting and bouncing off of each other. I mean, lap 10, there’s door slamming. It’s just a different, different type of racing back there. You really try to just tread lightly as you can. I think one of them hooked the other one.

That was the biggest concern I had, was just getting caught up or getting the grille knocked in early in the race.

It’s not one on one. You got a teammate. Kyle has a teammate. After all this season to be racing Kyle and two others for the championship, what does it mean to have that opportunity?

DENNY HAMLIN: I mean, I’ve said for many, many weeks now that it would be a disservice if someone other than the two of us didn’t win. I mean, he’s obviously probably the most deserving over the course of the year that he’s had from start to finish.

But, yeah, the format, you just never know. Nearly it all ended right there in turn three for silly reasons. That’s why I always preach about wish the sample size was bigger. You don’t have somebody else’s mistakes that can take you out of what you’ve done for the whole season.

Certainly I think when you look at the four that are in it, I think it’s the best four that you could possibly put in that race. I think all of them would be deserving champions. Obviously Kyle would make the most sense

MARTIN TRUEX JR.,

How did you make it back from the damage?

“The Auto Owners Toyota Camry was really good, first of all. Solid day. We didn’t have a winning car, but we had a third or fourth place car and that is where we ran. Everything was going smooth and then the 2 (Brad Keselowski) and 18 (Kyle Busch) came up to the front kind of out of nowhere. I got some damage running side-by-side with the 2 car, and fell back and then the 10 (Aric Almirola) stuffed me three-wide out of the groove in turn one and two and then the 1 car came by and clipped my left front and drove me into the fence off of turn two. I was like oh, damn, we are in big trouble here, but then we just fought back and did everything we could. We got a little break on the last restart. Everybody took the bottom and I saw the hole up there and I was like I have to go for it, and that worked out for us. Just thanks to everybody who helped us all year long to get us to this point. Everybody at the shop, TRD, Johnny Morris, Bass Pro Shops, Auto Owners, all of the friends who were here today, just so much support that allows us to do this. Hopefully we can go to Phoenix and make them proud.”

Brad Keselowski

Third-place finish, but unfortunately not enough. You’ll end up minus eight on the day. Disappointing day I know. What was the difference at the end?

BRAD KESELOWSKI: At the start of the race we were okay. Got really tight in the middle of the race. Car started rolling at the end. Just super free. I was so loose. Got underneath the 9, got loose. Spun him out. All I could do to hold onto the car.

We got it better, put ourselves in a position. Just wasn’t quite strong enough there at the end. Disappointing. All in all we gave it a great run here. Wish I could have last week at Kansas back, that’s for sure. Felt like I left the eight points we were short there with some mistakes I made.

All in all, proud of our team. Proud of the efforts that everyone put in. Disappointed for Team Penske to not get through to the final round. We gave it our best. Feel bad for Chase, that he got caught up there. At least he’s still good for next week. Frustrating day.

You’ll go to Phoenix next week. Your final race with Team Penske. How important will that be to you?

BRAD KESELOWSKI: Yeah, it would be huge. We’re going to shoot real hard for that. Hopefully we can pull it off. But super proud of everything we’ve done together.

Race Results