History will remember that when one of the major players in the playoffs ends, no matter what Nascar finally decides to do with his championship format next year and beyond.
Bubba Wallace And Tyler Reddick Everyone did not need less than a victory on Sunday at Kansas Speedway to avoid elimination. Denny Hamlin needs each point of qualifying series that it can reach the Final Four in just over a month.
Christopher Bell Likewise, knows what it is recently to be the first driver outside. Chase Elliott has not put the world exactly on figurative fire lately.
The Hollywood Casino 400 was decided exclusively among them.
Wallace ran on the track
Hamlin without power steering makes a race.
Hamlin Serre Wallace in the wall
Elliott takes care of the gap and wins the race
There is so much to unpack there. For one, both 23XI Racing The drivers had nothing less than a victory according to the way in which last week in Loudon bled the first half in Kansas.
He would not have broken Hamlin in the photo of the championship to finish second behind Wallace, his employee, but he went to do it. After all, Hamlin had swept the first two stages and was not outside the advance due to a power failure.
“It’s just a huge disappointment, I don’t know how to say it,” said Hamlin. “It is a massive disappointment. I thought that any race that I would have loved to get my 60th here. This is where I had my very first departure. Domina. Had the best car. I had a bad stop at the stand. I got the track position, and the fact of not having an assisted direction was not ideal.
“Obviously, it was very close to (Wallace) and I had to start again, I think I was running a lower line to allow a little space between us, so I don’t tighten myself so tight.”
But again, once on racing weekends at the start, Denny Hamlin is the pilot of Joe Gibbs Racing N ° 11 and not co -owner of 23Xi n ° 23 and 45.
“I was going to (career victory) n ° 60,” said Hamlin. “No one will never accuse me of never getting longer for anyone for a victory. Obviously, to win a championship, I have to find a way to move on. I would be delighted not to have entered one of these cars but I was simply too tight and I chased it on the track.”
Wallace has entered the race for a cut in the 27 -point elimination series and leaves for 26 people.
“So we won a point,” Wallace said sardonly.
Watch: Wallace: “Hate we gave it to Chevrolet” after the scrap at the last blow with Hamlin
He had beaten Bell on two consecutive restarts and led a Toyota 1-2-3-4-5 restart and none of them won.
“It’s the thing that bothers me the most,” said Wallace. “We had the top-5 and gave (Elliott, Chevrolet) a victory. We worked very hard at Toyota to recover our program in Kansas, I played all our cars well, and it was not supposed to be.”
Wallace said “we will speak” when asked if he and Hamlin would talk about it.
“I have always been big to run you as you run me,” said Wallace. “No matter who you are, we run hard but we respect each other. There is a thin line and sometimes we cross it and you must understand this.
“We have one more race, and for me, it is a must at the OVVEN, but we are going to do what we have done today, who fights hard and try to get the most out of it.”
Reddick faces these same ratings with an essential victory now.
“Obviously, there is only one thing that we can do in Charlotte and that is what we will focus on,” said Reddick.
Elliott locks in the round of 8
Watch: Elliott: “ everything worked perfect ” in the Kansas Victory
Meanwhile, Elliott joins Ryan Blaney As only drivers who are entirely indifferent to what is happening at the Roval because they are locked up. And in the case of Elliott, it was a scenario of seas so unlikely which also created its second victory of the season.
“I did not know more what was going to happen to the turn three than anyone who did not do it,” said Elliott.
“I am delighted to go back and look at it, honestly. You live for this kind of thing and you live for these moments. Obviously, I know what was my point of view, and I remember the things I looked at when I looked at them but I don’t have the complete image.
“So I’m happy to go back and see what it looked like. I made decisions in two seconds based on the information I had in front of me at that time, right? ”
This victory was particularly wild for team n ° 9 because there was a lot of success in their results and their performances. They have the top-5 in New Hampshire and Gateway once the playoffs, but there was also the failure of the company in the south of the 500.
Richmond and Watkins Glen did not go particularly well either, so it was a surprise in some respects to Elliott as well.
“I’m sure you didn’t all have this on your bingo card today,” said Elliott. “I didn’t think.
“I think that for us, I was very transparent in the areas we need to be better, without a doubt. I thought that this weekend was truly a really, really solid weekend, a really competitive weekend for us for the way we discharged the opportunities that we continued to present to ourselves today.
“The way I have progressed in the playoffs this year is just to fight as hard as possible every week, trying to win myself and our team three more weeks, and you never know what can happen in three weeks.”
Elliott said during the media day of the cutting series that “many can occur over 10 weeks” and that it must simply manage the ups and downs to the best of its capacities. Toyota presented him with an opportunity and he seized it.
“What did I tell you – the playoffs are long and many can happen in ten weeks,” said Elliott.
“It can make the difference between that someone is poor to potentially get on a hot sequence or even a team that improves collectively throughout time. So it’s about buying more time. If you are not where you want to be, you just try to buy more time.
“Fortunately, we bought ourselves three more weeks, and we will fight like hell until they tell us not to do it.”
