In a race that saw a little of everything, Saturday night’s cutoff race for the Chase to the Sprint Cup ended with an Overtime finish. It is the fourth time in his career he has won at least three times. Unfortunately a couple of big mistakes, a bad pit stop and a speeding penalty, took its toll.
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“We really got a good restart”, said Hamlin, who led seven times for 189 laps. The crash pretty much sealed the deal that Newman wouldn’t be in the chase. There are three spots available Saturday night – four if Buescher falls below 30th – and a first-time race victor would snag one of the open slots.
“This is awesome”, said Buescher. “Trying to figure out the ideal scenarios so that we can race into the Chase and then move through the Chase”. We have all the sponsors and employees from CSX here tonight. They were cheering like we won a race or something.
Elliott was just relieved to shed the stress of an eventful race. We all know he’s got issues. “We feel like we’ve got a really good shot at it”.
It was just the opposite for Newman. That sent him home 28th and well outside the mark needed to score enough points to advance to the Chase. Buescher, with a win already, had to manage to remain in the top 30 of the points standings by remaining ahead of David Ragain. But these two drivers have raced right around one another most of the season. “Three times, that’s two more times than I normally let someone run into me”. We got involved in one of the accidents, had a tire go down, just a very eventful day.
“You just try to think of dotting every I and crossing every T because that’s what it’s all about, and you have to get everything out of every person that touches everything on that vehicle at another level to win this deal”.
“The next thing I know, he is driving across my nose on the back straightaway because he’s Tony Stewart”.
“I don’t think there was any reason other than him just being bipolar and having anger issues”, Newman said. “You’ll see all kinds of things he’s done”. Look it up on YouTube, everything else.
Denny Hamlin led the field to the green flag for Saturday night’s event in front of a large crowd at the Virginia-based track. Pit crew members also held up signs thanking fans as the cars passed by. Kasey Kahne, needing a win to make the Chase, pitted for tires in a last-ditch effort for a miracle, but he didn’t have anything for Hamlin in the end.
“I’ve always liked Richmond”, said Kahne. “I thought I was clear”.
“We look at this first round, and we want to make it past that round”. “But Denny was better than we were”. “It is an unfortunate race deal”.
All 13 race winners from the regular season qualified into the postseason and three drivers made it in on points. Truex, Brad Keselowski and Kevin Harvick finished third through fifth, respectively.
Casey Mears and Matt DiBenedetto collided in Turn 3 on Lap 279, but the No. 13 vehicle rolled on. Chris Buescher gets free pass.
But once the race reached halfway, business began to pick up.
Lap 222 – Debris on track.
Kyle Larson got by Martin Truex Jr. on the final lap to take runner-up honors. Fifteen laps later, Ricky Stenhouse and Paul Menard tangled in Turn 2.
Hendrick Motorsport’s prodigal son Chase Elliott raced his way into NASCAR’s version of the playoffs on Saturday night. Michael Annett crashed in Turn 2 on Lap 290, followed by Carl Edwards on Lap 321.
Lap 328 – AJ Allmendinger hits wall. Kenseth cut a tire and slammed into the Turn 3 wall.
(39) Dylan Lupton (i), Toyota, 406. He corrected a reporter who said that Newman had been penalized – it was RCR that was flagged, and the punishment was a loss of points – and wasn’t up for discussing how he felt.
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(38) * Reed Sorenson, Chevrolet, 404.
