While Kyle Larson was running away with the Bass Pro Shops Bristol Night Race Saturday night, fascinating battles were taking place further back in the pack.
Bristol served as the first elimination race of the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series playoffs, where 12 drivers would advance to the second round and four would be eliminated from championship contention. While no driver could touch Larson, who led an incredible 462 of 500 laps en route to his fifth win of the season and the 28th of his career, there was drama brewing all over the Tennessee short track as the 16 playoff drivers fought for positions on the track and points in the standings.
The cutline was where the real action centered, with teams calculating points as the race was being run to keep their drivers in 12th place or better in the playoff standings. The biggest example: A driver running in second in the middle of Stage 3 had to worry about a driver racing in 30th and multiple laps down.
That was the case for Martin Truex Jr., the 2017 Cup Series champion, who has announced that this will be his final season of full-time racing.
Truex came into Bristol ranked 15th in the playoff standings, but he qualified fourth on Saturday and was racing in the Top 5 most of the night. He was doing exactly what he needed to squeak into the Round of 12. At the other end of the spectrum was Daniel Suarez, who ranked fifth in the standings after two playoff races but had an extremely slow car all weekend.
And then everything turned on a penalty on Lap 332 of 500. Truex came down pit road second and kept his position after getting fuel and changing tires – until NASCAR informed the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing team that Truex was being penalized for speeding, sending him to the back of the field for the restart. Where moments before a runner-up finish and advancement in the playoffs seemed well within his grasp, Truex now had to figure out a way to drive through the field and, at the same time, worry about a driver racing laps behind him. In the end, Truex could never regain that ground. He finished 24th at Bristol and was one of four drivers to be eliminated from the playoffs along with teammate Ty Gibbs, 2012 series champion Brad Keselowski, and Harrison Burton.
“It’s really tough – when it’s .09 miles per hour that kind of screws your whole chance at a good season up. It’s on me, obviously, it’s my mistake,” a clearly disappointed Truex said after the race.
“They said we were going to have to run second or third there to have a chance, and I don’t know if we could have done it, but it would have been nice to see. We had a really strong car tonight, and we got a lot of stage points, we did what we needed there, just hate that I screwed it up.
“But from here we’ll just go on to race hard and hopefully get back to victory lane before it’s all said and done.”
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