MARTINSVILLE, Va. – Kyle Busch came close to advancing into the NASCAR Cup Series Championship 4, finishing less than one second away from having a chance to go to Phoenix Raceway for a chance to battle for the NASCAR Cup Series championship.
As for Team Penske, all three of its drivers failed to advance into the Championship 4 after Sunday’s Xfinity 500 at Martinsville Speedway.
Busch along with Team Penske’s Brad Keselowski, Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney were all eliminated in a wild 500-lap race at the treacherous .526-mile Martinsville Speedway oval.
Busch’s bid at making the Championship 4 ended when he finished .472 seconds behind race winner Alex Bowman.
He entered the race with a one-point edge in the points, but lost that advantage through stage points on Sunday. He missed a bid at the championship race by three points.
Busch believes it was last Sunday’s race at Kansas Speedway that put him in the difficult position at the end Sunday’s race. He finished 28th at Kansas, six laps down.
“We just missed last week,” Busch said after finishing second. “That’s where we lost all the ground. We 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.”
Ironically, Busch lost the last Championship 4 position to his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate, Martin Truex, Jr.
“Obviously, it was Truex’s day,” Busch said. “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.
“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.
“I guess you get an F.”
Near the end of the race, Keselowski was involved in a fierce battle with Busch for what would could have been the final spot in the Championship 4. But that changed when race-leader Denny Hamlin was spun out by eventual race winner Alex Bowman six laps from the finish.
At that point, Busch had to win the race in order to get in, or Truex would have had to have a major calamity to prevent him from advancing.
Keselowski’s No. 2 Ford finished third and he missed the Championship 4 by eight points.
“We gave it all we had,” Keselowski said. “We just needed to be a little bit faster in stage two to get us a handful of points and be closer, and then at the end I was just too loose. I just couldn’t quite get it perfectly tweaked in, but all in all, a pretty good run.”
The last few laps were not only wild at the front in the battle involving Bowman, Hamlin and at the end, Busch, but also in Keselowski’s Hail Mary attempt at a victory.
“We all just threw everything we had at it, and nobody really had anything for the Hendrick and Gibbs cars,” Keselowski said. “I felt we were getting closer at the end. Crew chief Jeremy Bullins and the team really dialed the thing in as close as we could get, but that was just all we had.
“Alex was so much faster. I mean, he pulled two car lengths from me through the gears, so I was going to need a lot more help under the hood if I was going to move Bowman, so we’ve got a lot of work to do for next year.”
Except next year will be with a different team for Keselowski, as he leaves Team Penske after next week’s race at Phoenix Raceway and joins Roush Fenway Racing. Keselowski will have an ownership stake with that operation.
Blaney’s bid was going to be even more difficult. The second-generation Cup racer knew he had to win to get in.
Instead, he finished 11th in the No. 12 Ford for Team Penske.
“It was definitely frustrating,” Blaney explained. “I was looking forward to today a lot. We had one run where I thought we got going pretty good and drove up into the top 10 and made an adjustment and went right back to where it was. It was kind of a head scratcher today. I wish I could tell you where we missed it at, but I appreciate all the hard work from everybody today.
“It just wasn’t quite enough.
“Losing is losing. I don’t care if you miss it by one point or 20, I mean, it stinks no matter what. It sucks we don’t get to race for a championship at Phoenix, but I appreciate the year everyone has put together and we have one more shot to get Todd another victory. Hopefully, we can do that for him before he hangs it up.”
Logano was another driver that had to win to advance to the Championship 4. He finished 10th.
“We just weren’t fast enough,” Logano said. “We couldn’t get the car to turn. It was just a struggle all day. We tried different things, but the car just wouldn’t fire off good and ultimately at the end you had to fire off good and we didn’t have that either. We tried compromising to try and make everything better, but all that is is a compromise. The guys that win aren’t compromising and it just wasn’t there.
“It was mediocre. That’s all we were today. We struggled with being tight in two-thirds and tried to fix it. It was kind of the wrong way, so we tried a different way and got closer, but even at that we were just kind of compromising our balance to get decent. Our fire off speed was not very good, which was also a struggle, especially at the end with all those refires at the end. We just didn’t fire off fast enough.
“It was not the best of days. Nothing really worked out. The strategy piece that we tried worked out fairly well, but we just weren’t fast enough to really stay towards the front and really do much. It’s kind of a bummer. You go out there in a must-win situation and can’t even see the front most of the day, so we just missed it.”
All four of these drivers will have a chance to compete for a victory at Phoenix Raceway, but they won’t be a factor in the championship.
For a driver that finished less than one second to the race win or three points from advancing via points such as Busch, or a driver that ultimately was out of advancement by a lot, it doesn’t really matter to these four.
“Losing is losing,” Logano said. “I don’t think it matters how it happens. Whether you’re close or you lose by a lot, I think they both sting.”