KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — Hendrick Motorsports got off to a slow start in NASCAR’s playoffs despite starting the three-round title pursuit with the regular-season champion and all four of its drivers in the title hunt.
Something was off immediately as Chase Elliott’s 17th-place finish in the playoff opener at Darlington was the best of the Hendrick four and Alex Bowman, who narrowly made the 16-driver field, was immediately in danger of elimination.
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Joe Gibbs Racing swept the first three playoff races — and Bowman was indeed knocked out when the field was cut to 12 drivers — then Ryan Blaney of Team Penske won the opening race of the second round.
It took until Sunday at Kansas Speedway for a Hendrick driver to finally get on the board as Elliott stole the victory in overtime by driving from 10th to the checkered flag in a sneaky, two-lap sprint. The victory locked Elliott into the third round of the playoffs alongside Blaney, with the remaining six slots to be filled after this Sunday’s race on the hybrid road course/oval at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
The Elliott win at Kansas was unbelievable to everyone including his team. Vice chairman Jeff Gordon was hoarse from the celebrations.
“You’ll take the win however you can get it. Obviously it’s a huge spark for the 9 team, but you also want to execute solid races,” Gordon said. “I think we saw first round we didn’t execute very well, and it looked sloppy. I think we realize we’re on our heels a little bit.”
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Elliott’s win doesn’t mean things are suddenly fixed. Elliott is in the round of eight, and Kyle Larson and William Byron head to Charlotte above the cutline and not in imminent danger of elimination.
Still, Byron wasn’t very good at Kanasas and ran near the back of the field until a flurry of late cautions changed the entire race. As unbelievable as Elliott’s win, Byron inexplicably finished ninth.
“The 24 was the one that was kind of the eye opener. They were pretty far off,” Gordon said. “They come out of here with a top-10 because they didn’t give up either. That one’s got us scratching our heads, and we’ll go back and diagnose kind of what they went through and why they were in that position. Just glad they pulled a good finish together there to get the points they needed.”
Byron, who won the season-opening Daytona 500 and is the regular-season champion, was third last week at New Hampshire so now has consecutive top-10 finishes. He wasn’t terrible in the first round of the playoffs, but he wasn’t as strong as the Gibbs fleet of Denny Hamlin, Christopher Bell and Chase Briscoe. All three won a race in the first round.
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Larson also has back-to-back top-10 finishes but has led a combined five total laps the last two weeks.
Gordon believes the Elliott victory and Byron’s comeback will help the Hendrick group moving through the next month of the season. He particularly believes Byron can make a title run.
“I feel like they’ve kind of been in championship form several times this season, winning the regular season points. (Kansas) was uncharacteristic of them,” Gordon said. “But to see them fight back, that keeps the momentum on their side as well.
“This late in the season, this stage and round in the playoffs, it’s so important to get some things to go your way to give you that extra incentive or just extra motivation to go win a championship and believe that you can do it.”
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