Christopher Bell seized the victory on a late restart at Bristol Motor Speedway, completing a first-round sweep of the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs for Joe Gibbs Racing.
Bell went from fourth to first on the final restart and led the last four laps at the 0.533-mile oval, ending a 24-race winless streak with his fourth victory of the season.
“It wasn’t pretty there at the end, but we got her done,” Bell, who led only 12 laps in his 13th career victory, told NBC Sports’ Marty Snider. “We just know that any given week, it could be us, and it hasn’t been for a long time. But Bristol, baby! Tonight it’s us.”
He joined teammates Denny Hamlin (Gateway) and Chase Briscoe (Darlington) as first-round winners as Toyotas remained unbeaten in the playoffs.
Bell finished 0.343 seconds ahead of Brad Keselowski, who came up one position short of ending a 51-race winless streak.
“Just the story of our season,” Keselowski told NBC Sports’ Trevor Bayne. “Just a 50-50 shot on the restart, and I got the lane that couldn’t launch. Just frustrating. We had a great car, great strategy, and on the last restart, we just rolled the dice and didn’t get anything good.”
Zane Smith finished third, followed by Ryan Blaney and Joey Logano.
There were a season-high 14 caution flags for 137 laps as drivers struggled to get a handle on a softer right-side tire with excessive wear that required a multitude of pit stops for teams expecting to run much longer stints.
Tire management quickly became a major theme as drivers began making green-flag stops after only 30 laps. In practice, drivers had made more than 70 consecutive laps without trouble. A Saturday night with temperatures in the low 60s made it difficult to lay rubber on the concrete surface. That caused excessive wear and incidents throughout the field as drivers misjudged closing rates because of the massive disparities in lap times.
“It was just chaotic,” William Byron said. “From around 10th on back, there were just people running into each other, and then you had differences in tires. If they were four laps different, you just couldn’t make the corner, and wrecks would happen everywhere.”
The playoff drama spiked with 40 laps remaining when a fire erupted under Austin Cindric’s No. 2 Ford. His team was able to extinguish the flames, but Cindric lost several laps in the pits and re-emerged outside the top 30. But his 30th place finish still was good enough for the 12th and final transfer spot to the second round.
“Looking forward to hitting the Round of 12 hard,” Cindric said. “I want to keep advancing through. This team is capable of a lot. Try and keep my head above water and hold my breath when I’m under it, so moving on. I believe in this team. I believe in myself. I have not been driving as well as I am now in the Cup Series. It’s been a constant climb, and those around me reflect that.”
Alex Bowman, who rebounded from a spin on the 100th lap, ran as high as second but still needed to win to bump out Cindric. He finished eighth and came up 10 points short of advancing.
“I don’t think you can really point at something that cost us,” Bowman said. “Our back was against the wall coming in here. We knew it was going to be a tough thing to do.”
Also eliminated were Austin Dillon (28th), Shane van Gisbergen (26th) and Josh Berry (39th).
Seeking his first Cup victory, Ty Gibbs led a race-high 201 of 500 laps but bungled while trying to reach the pits for a green-flag stop with 65 laps remaining, losing major time in his No. 54 Toyota. He finsihed 10th.
With smoke billowing from the cockpit and flames shooting out from his right-front tire, Berry made an eye-catching exit as the first driver eliminated. The Wood Brothers Racing driver qualified 10th and ran as high as third before a fire erupted on his No. 21 Ford.
“Man, just so disappointing,” Berry said. “That was going to be a lot of fun. We were moving forward. It’s been a tough couple of weeks, but it hasn’t been because of performance. We executed well and ran well, just haven’t had the finishes.”
Berry, whose playoff debut began with a crash on the first lap of the Southern 500, finished last in all three races of the first round.
“The car was really good,” he said. “That was going to fall right into our wheelhouse to have a really good night. We were able to make it pretty long on that first set, and we were going to be set up in a really good spot. This one is gonna be hard to watch because that looks like it’s gonna be a lot of fun. … We’ve qualified well. We’ve had good cars. We just haven’t had the good finishes. That’s just part of it. I don’t think you could ever script three last-place finishes in the ways that we’ve gotten them over the last few weeks.”
Stage 1 winner: Blaney
Stage 2 winner: Gibbs
Next: Sunday, Sept. 21, 2 p.m. ET at New Hampshire Motor Speedway on USA
Read the full article here