Logano, Harvick Just Never Had It
Joey Logano becomes the first defending NASCAR Cup Series champion in this era to get ousted in the opening round of the playoffs. The previous eight all made it to at least the Round of 12. Logano’s opening round didn’t go to plan.
12th in the Southern 500. A nice strategy call to take him from well outside the top 10 to 5th in Kansas and had him +13 entering Saturday night but qualifying only 28th left him without any stage points. Then came that crash that he was an innocent bystander in and his playoff hopes were over.
The previous defending champions and what they did the next season: Kevin Harvick (Championship 4), Kyle Busch (Championship 4), Jimmie Johnson (Round of 8), Martin Truex Jr. (Championship 4), Logano (Round of 8), Kyle Busch (Round of 12), Chase Elliott (Championship 4), Kyle Larson (Round of 12).
For Kevin Harvick, he’s a first-round exit for the second straight season. Previously, he went Champion, Championship 4, Round of 8, Championship 4, Championship 4, Championship 4, Round of 8, Round of 12, Round of 16 and now Round of 16 again.
“We’ve been like that all year,” he said. “We’ve been hit or miss. Tonight we just missed by a mile. I’ve had some good days and bad days, but that’s definitely the worst one I’ve had with fenders on it.”
From 5 final round appearances in a 6 year span to none in the final 4. It’s a shame too because his career will end with just one title.
2020 he had nine wins but was a shock exit in the third round. He never gained the steam back after that. In fact, his win in this very race in 2020 was that ninth win in the first 29 races of the season. He had 13 wins in a 46 races span.
Over the last 108 races after, he has just two victories.
“I didn’t really have many expectations with as up and down as the year has been,” he said. “It is what it is. It’s probably about what we deserve.”
That’s the difference. In an era that rewards winning, he just wasn’t doing it near enough.
It’s not like it was all their fault though. The Ford’s have struggled. They won 18 times in 2020. They’ve won 22 total times since including just 6 this year.
Ford’s led 30 total laps in the opening round with 39% (686 of 1,808) laps led being on drafting tracks.
“I haven’t really felt like we’ve made any big gains that we need to and unfortunately it seems like it’s at every track,” said Logano. “Typically, you may say, ‘Oh, we’re off on a mile-and-a-half, but our short tracks are OK or your road courses are OK.’ It just seems like we’re off everywhere right now, so we’ll see what happens here the rest of the race and if we get knocked out it gives us a few races to swing big and try to figure it out for next year.”
Cardiac Wallace Does It Again, Qualifying Key
Bubba Wallace admitted nerves leading up to the regular season finale in Daytona. He was on edge. But, he also did just enough to advance to his first career playoff appearance as well. Heading into Bristol, he was on the bubble again.
Wallace was 7th in Darlington but a toe link issue after catching the wall early in Kansas left him 32nd. He was -19 entering the Round of 16 elimination race. No one has made up that many points in the final race of the first round without having to win.
Wallace, now has that feat.
He can thank qualifying on Friday night for that.
Wallace started ninth. He’d finish third in the opening stage to get eight crucial stage points. He advanced to the next round by just 4. Those points in the opening stage was enough to get him to the Round of 12 and newfound life again.
With Kevin Harvick and Joey Logano struggling to the tune of not stage points and finishes of 29th and 34th respectively, Wallace did just enough to finish 14th and move on.
Over a chorus of boos, Wallace at it up.
“Good, I love that shit right there. Counting us out (referring to the boos of the crowd),” he said. “Like Coco Gauff said, all they’re doing is adding fuel to the fire. I love it.
“I love where I’m at with this team. Wish my mom, dad, sister were here to celebrate with me. I mean, a career year. Just got to keep it going. Appreciate all the partners involved. Columbia has done great when they’re on the car. Hated it for them last week.
“I’m mentally exhausted. I’m wore out. Gave it our all there. Battled hard and executed. That’s what you got to do.
“We know next week’s a reset. We just got to go out and have some fun, work our asses off.
“Thank you to the ones that believe in me. Keep it going. Yeah, on to next week.”
Truex Moves On
Martin Truex Jr. can breathe a sigh of relief. Despite being 7 points down entering the weekend and finishing 19th in Saturday night’s race, the Joe Gibbs Racing driver is moving on to the Round of 12.
“We started the race off, I felt okay about it. We got too tight, but track position – we were pretty okay there,” Truex said. “Once we lost it, just forget about it – it was plowing tight, blowing the right front off. There wasn’t a whole lot that I could do. We kept adjusting on it. We got a lap down. The last run we finally made a little bit of progress on the car, and we were just so far back.”
The two stage points in the opening round helped. He was +5 in the end and can start over again.
Truex got into the wall in practice at Darlington and despite knowing that he probably needed to fix the car, he remained silent. He was afraid to call for changes and them not be needed. They definitely did. He’d finish 18th. A week later, an early race cut tire put him in the wall and a last place 36th place effort.
Bristol is one of his worst tracks. He barely got by and now has new life. However, can he truly turn things around?
Truex is 0-for-33 in Texas. Three of his last four Texas finishes have seen him come home 25th or worse too. He has just one single Top-5 finish in his last eight starts on the 1.5-mile track and comes to the next round with finishes of 18th, 36th, 19th in the opening round.
He’s had just three top five finishes at Talladega since 2007. His last 12 finishes there are 40th, 35th, 23rd, 26th, 23rd, 20th, 24th, 23rd, 31st, 12th fifth, 26th and 27th respectively. He’s only scored the 17th most points on superspeedway’s too.
On the ROVAL, he should have won the inaugural race, was 7th in the two races after but 29th and 17th the last 2 years. He’s also finished 17th, first, 32nd, seventh, sixth on road courses this season. Last year, he finished 7th, 26th, 13th, 21st, 23rd and 17th on them.
Bell Still Winless From Pole
Christopher Bell is now 0-for-6 in regards to race wins from the pole this season. Friday night he won his 6th pole of the year with the top speed in the final round at the Bristol (Tenn) Motor Speedway. In fact, he swept all three opening round poles. Unfortunately for him, he heads into the Round of 12 winless in the postseason too.
Bell had a great race with a third-place run in his No. 20 Toyota but he’s not won a race in the last 160 days either. He did lead a race-high 187 of 500 laps including sweeping both stages, but Denny Hamlin and Kyle Larson were just that much better.
“It definitely is a run to be proud of, but I’ll be honest, this was probably our best race we’ve had in a while and probably the most disappointed I’ve been in a while,” Bell said. “Just got a little bit away from us there in the last half of the race. That is how it goes sometimes, but I’m really proud of the effort on this Reser’s Camry. It was a lot of fun leading laps, and this track is just the best.”
Bell finished 32nd in Fontana, 29th in Loudon, 13th in Michigan, 23rd in Darlington and 8th last week in Kansas from the pole too.
Bell’s only win this season came on this very track on Easter Night. However, it was also on dirt. Still, he got by to fight still at a shot at the championship as 1 of 5 Toyota drivers in the second round.
Hamlin, Larson Top Opening Round Drivers, Unlock Achievements
There’s no hiding the fact that this is shaping up to be a Denny Hamlin vs. Kyle Larson battle for the championship. Same as in 2021 too. Hamlin and Larson won 2 of the 3 opening round races. That season, Hamlin won the Southern 500 and Larson the Bristol Night Race. This year, it was the opposite.
Hamlin dominated the Southern 500 in sweeping both stages and leading 177 laps along the way. He thought he had a loose wheel towards the end and had to endure an unscheduled pit stop. That dropped him to 25th. Last week in Kansas, he had the race won until the final caution sending the race to overtime. He finished second. This week, he led 142 of 500 laps and won.
382 laps led in the opening round gives him over 14,000 for his career now.
“It’s our year,” Hamlin said after scoring his 51st career NASCAR Cup Series victory. “I just feel like we’ve got it all put together. We’ve got the speed every single type of racetrack. Nothing to stop us at this point.”
For Larson, he did win Darlington, was fourth in Kansas and now runner-up in Bristol. That gives him 100 career top 5 finishes now.
“I feel like we had the second-best car and we finished second with it,” said Larson. “We just didn’t have the pace that Denny had. He was really, really fast and got through traffic really well. I thought maybe his balance was fading when we got to traffic, but as soon as he got clear of them, he took back off. Just didn’t quite have the balance that I needed to really charge through the corners and be aggressive on the throttle and exit.”
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