MARTINSVILLE, Va. — Christopher Bell’s “Walk Off Winner” and Ross Chastain’s video game move on the last lap of the Xfinity 500 at Martinsville Speedway got both driver into NASCAR’s Championship Four in next Sunday’s championship race at Phoenix Raceway.
But for four drivers that didn’t make the cut, Sunday’s 500-lap contest at Martinsville Speedway was the end of their championship dreams for 2022.
No one was more disappointed that Denny Hamlin, who was in position to advance to Phoenix before Chastain’s wild move saw him race from 10th to fifth in the final two turns of the race.
“Certainly, we’re trying to battle,” Hamlin said. “Obviously I was trying to get in there. But it’s racing. It’s what racing is here as Martinsville. I’m actually pretty happy with somewhat how clean it was there towards the end, as crazy was it was with guys on different tires.
“I can’t say enough for my team to give us a shot. We were in 20s for most of the season in our points because of our up-and-down execution.
“We’re going to end up fifth in points. That is what it is.”
Hamlin the first two stages to collect the bonus points and led 203 laps in the 500-lap race. Race-winner Bell led three times for 150 laps.
“You got to execute all day,” Hamlin lamented. “We just didn’t control the race when we had control of it. Each caution we just kept losing some spots. That’s the way it is.
“But thank Chris Gabehart (crew chief), the whole FedEx Camry team for giving me a fast car today. It was unbelievable when it was out front.
“I just couldn’t quite hang on to it there on pit road. But congrats to Chris, those guys just did an amazing job, really capitalizing and doing well, winning races when they needed to.
“Hopefully they can carry the banner for us.”
Chase Briscoe of Stewart Haas Racing was so far back in points, he had to win to get into the Championship Four.
He finished 10th.
Briscoe was in the lead on the final restart after his team decided to stay out of the pits during the final caution of the race.
“That was kind of the only play I felt like we really had,” Briscoe said. “I was honestly surprised nobody else stayed out in front of me. We couldn’t really pass all day long, so we knew if we restarted eighth, where I think we were running, we probably would have run seventh or eighth.
“I thought it was going to work for a second. I thought if the race was 10 less laps I was probably going to win, but I just fell off a cliff really hard there at the end.
“It’s unfortunate, but I had a shot. The penalty early in the race killed us. Like I said, it was really hard to pass and had to scrap and claw position by position and it took us a really long time to get back up there, but I thought our car was pretty good towards the end. It would have been nice to be on even tires, for sure. I felt like we had a car capable of running up front and battling for the win, but that was really the only play we had left.”
Briscoe’s bid to advance appeared to be foiled when he was penalized for leaving pit lane with the fuel can still attached to his No. 14 Ford. He had to restart at the end of the longest line.
“It was frustrating,” Briscoe said. “It felt like when I was back there, I was probably better than the 10 cars in front of me, but you just can’t pass them. You’re just stuck.
“We definitely need to figure out the short track package. It’s a struggle. You literally can’t pass. I’d say maybe the 11 (Denny Hamlin) on the long run was good enough. He could pass, but you had to be almost a half-second better than the guy in front of you to even have a chance, so it was definitely frustrating from that standpoint.
“I just wish we didn’t get the penalty. If we would have stayed in the top four or five, we probably would have run in the top four or five all day and then at the end you have a chance to do four tires and maybe win the race.
“I thought our car was good enough to battle for the win, but the penalty really killed us.”
Ryan Blaney was another driver on the outside of the cutoff line and knew he had to win the race in order to team Team Penske two drivers in the Championship Four.
Blaney finished third and that leaves Las Vegas winner Joey Logano as the only one of team owner Roger Penske’s drivers that can win the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series championship next week at Phoenix.
“It was a wild day,” Blaney said. “I didn’t think we were great to start. We kind of faded at the end of that first stage, but we got better throughout the night, which is good, and found ourselves in second on the second-to-last run and kind of ran the 20 (Bell) down. I got to him and then you burn your stuff up trying to pass somebody.
“There weren’t many passes for the lead tonight and then the last restart I thought I was in a good spot on the bottom. I thought more pandemonium was gonna happen than that and the 20 got down and he was able to kind of go to work and I couldn’t really get going as good. It’s unfortunate not to transfer, but proud of the effort. I didn’t do a great job the last two weeks and put us in a bad spot, but I’m proud of everyone all year and we’ll try to go run well at Phoenix.
“I’m proud of the effort tonight by everybody, but it just wasn’t quite enough.”
William Byron was the other driver out of the group of eight that failed to advance out of Sunday’s race. The Hendrick Motorsports driver finished eighth.
“Unfortunately, we weren’t really in the game,” Byron said. “I knew that early on in the race, we were making some progress, but we just struggled all day. The first three-quarters of the race were pretty miserable. Nothing like what we had in the spring. We were just tight with not a lot of pace. The No. 24 Liberty University Chevy team kept their heads down and got a decent finish out of it, so that was a good lesson for the day.”
The 2022 NASCAR Cup Series Championship Four include Las Vegas winner Logano of Team Penske, Bell of Joe Gibbs Racing, Chase Elliott of Hendrick Motorsports and Chastain of Trackhouse Racing.