Alex Bowman first had to battle with Denny Hamlin on the track, and then had to face off with him as Hamlin showed his displeasure after the race on the front stretch at Martinsville Speedway on Sunday.
The two made contact with less than seven laps to go on the tight, half-mile layout, sending Hamlin spinning from the lead while Bowman took the top spot.
In the end, it was Bowman celebrating the NASCAR Cup Series win in victory lane with the coveted Grandfather Clock trophy awarded to the winner at the paper clip shaped track.
“I just got loose in,” said Bowman. “I got in too deep, knocked him out of the way and literally let him have the lead back. For anybody that wants to think I was trying to crash him, obviously wasn’t the case considering I literally gave up the lead at Martinsville to give it back to him.
“He’s been on the other side of that. He’s crashed guys here for wins. I hate doing it. Obviously I don’t want to crash somebody. I just got in, got underneath him, spun him out.”
Meanwhile, Hamlin was left to think about what could have been after contact from Bowman with a handful of laps left sent him spinning from the lead.
“He’s just a hack. Just an absolute hack,” said Hamlin, who finished 24th after the contact, and will go on to race in the Championship 4 next weekend at Phoenix. “He gets his (expletive) kicked by his teammates every week. He’s terrible. He’s just terrible. He sees one opportunity, he takes it. Obviously he’s got the fast car of the week and he runs 10th. He didn’t want to race us there.
“We had a good, clean race. I moved up as high as I could on the racetrack to give him all the room I could, he still can’t drive.”
Hamlin charged to the lead on a restart with 23 laps to go, but contact between he and Bowman sent Hamlin sliding high, with Bowman grabbing the lead.
Bowman then gave Hamlin the inside line, allowing the driver of the No. 11 Toyota to retake the position one lap later.
With 14 laps to go, Bowman began hounding Hamlin for the top spot, but each time Hamlin was able to hold the position. With seven laps to go, Bowman tried again to get to the inside of Hamlin, but Bowman’s car got loose, sliding up into Hamlin and sending him spinning in turn four.
That sent the race into overtime, with Bowman getting the jump on Kyle Busch and Brad Keselowski – both of whom were trying to battle their way into the Championship 4 next weekend at Phoenix – and held both off to take the win.
Afterwards, Hamlin twice blocked Bowman’s car on the front stretch as Bowman attempted to do a burnout to celebrate. Hamlin then pushed his car against Bowman’s before backing up and driving away.
“Man, I wasn’t going to get into it,” said Bowman. “This isn’t Bowman Gray Stadium. This is the Cup Series.”
“We got in (to the Championship 4), do what we had to do,” said Hamlin. “I just wanted to race there at the end. He’s just terrible.”
It’s the first win at Martinsville for Bowman, his fourth of the season and the sixth of his series career.
The win, however, does not put him in the Championship 4, as he was eliminated earlier in the year.
Martin Truex, Jr. finished in fourth, despite getting heavy front end damage and getting into the wall late in the going. That was good enough to put him into the Championship 4, along with Hamlin, Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson.
“We didn’t have a winning car, but we had a third or fourth place car and that is where we ran,” Truex, Jr. said. “Everything was going smooth and then the 2 (Brad Keselowski) and 18 (Kyle Busch) came up to the front kind of out of nowhere. I got some damage running side-by-side with the 2 car, and fell back and then the 10 (Aric Almirola) stuffed me three-wide out of the groove in turn one and two and then the 1 car came by and clipped my left front and drove me into the fence off of turn two.
“I was like oh, damn, we are in big trouble here, but then we just fought back and did everything we could.”
Larson ran near the front all day, but a pair of pit road speeding penalties put him in catch up mode. Contact with Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. with 39 laps to go left him with damage. Larson would finish 14th on the day.
“Not good. Just bad execution on my part on pit road,” Larson said. “I felt like our car was probably top-three, top-five, at times, and there were times it was tenth or worse. But my team did a good job working on it. I just sped (on pit road) too late in the race there again. From then on, just tried to not make anybody upset, knowing that I’m not going to get back up there for a win. Just try to keep everybody on my good side.”
Elliott led the most laps on the day, winning the first two segments of the race while pacing the field four times for 289 laps. But the Dawsonville, Georgia native’s car began fading during the final segment, and his day went off the rails after contact with Keselowski sent Elliott spinning in turn four with 47 laps to go. He then received damage after being run into by Bubba Wallace as the two slowed to avoid the Larson-Stenhouse incident. Elliott recovered to finish in 16th.
“Wish we could have won it,” Elliott said. “Hate to be so fast all day and it not work out, but obviously next week is what matters and that is where our heads are at. Excited to get out there and have another shot at it.”
Kyle Busch finished in second on Sunday, with Keselowski in third, as both missed the Championship 4 cut.
“We just missed last week,” said Busch. “That’s where we lost all the ground. Could have come in here with 15 more points, we would have been fine on the cut. Just wasn’t it. Wasn’t meant to be. Obviously it was Truex’s day. We had a Hail Mary opportunity there at the end. Just didn’t materialize.”
“We gave it all we had,” Keselowski said. “We just needed to be a little bit faster in stage two to get us a handful of points and be closer, and then at the end I was just too loose. I just couldn’t quite get it perfectly tweaked in, but, all in all, a pretty good run.”
Joining Busch and Keselowski on the outside of the Championship 4 was former series title winner Joey Logano, who finished 10th, but needed a win to make the cut.
“We just weren’t fast enough. We couldn’t get the car to turn,” said Logano. “It was just a struggle all day. We tried different things, but the car just wouldn’t fire off good and ultimately at the end you had to fire off good and we didn’t have that either. We tried compromising to try and make everything better, but all that is is a compromise. The guys that win aren’t compromising and it just wasn’t there.”
Also missing was Ryan Blaney, who two weeks ago was solidly in second in the standings. But a crash last week at Kansas, coupled with an ill handling car on Sunday at Martinsville – where he finished 11th – left him below the cutline.
“It was definitely frustrating.” Blaney said. “I was looking forward to today a lot. We had one run where I thought we got going pretty good and drove up into the top 10 and made an adjustment and went right back to where it was. It was kind of a head scratcher today. I wish I could tell you where we missed it at, but I appreciate all the hard work from everybody today. It just wasn’t quite enough.”
William Byron finished in fifth, with Aric Almirola, Kurt Busch, Erik Jones, Chris Buescher and Logano rounded out the top 10.
NASCAR Cup Series
Martinsville Speedway – Martinsville, VA
Xfinity 500 – October 31, 2021
1. (13) Alex Bowman, Chevrolet, 501.
2. (7) Kyle Busch (P), Toyota, 501.
3. (6) Brad Keselowski (P), Ford, 501.
4. (4) Martin Truex, Jr. (P), Toyota, 501.
5. (11) William Byron, Chevrolet, 501.
6. (23) Aric Almirola, Ford, 501.
7. (10) Kurt Busch, Chevrolet, 501.
8. (28) Erik Jones, Chevrolet, 501.
9. (15) Chris Buescher, Ford, 501.
10. (5) Joey Logano (P), Ford, 501.
11. (8) Ryan Blaney (P), Ford, 501.
12. (9) Kevin Harvick, Ford, 501.
13. (14) Austin Dillon, Chevrolet, 501.
14. (1) Kyle Larson (P), Chevrolet, 501.
15. (21) Matt DiBenedetto, Ford, 501.
16. (2) Chase Elliott (P), Chevrolet, 501.
17. (12) Christopher Bell, Toyota, 501.
18. (18) Tyler Reddick, Chevrolet, 501.
19. (25) Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., Chevrolet, 501.
20. (32) Anthony Alfredo #, Ford, 501.
21. (29) Corey LaJoie, Chevrolet, 501.
22. (22) Chase Briscoe #, Ford, 501.
23. (24) Cole Custer, Ford, 501.
24. (3) Denny Hamlin (P), Toyota, 501.
25. (17) Bubba Wallace, Toyota, 501.
26. (19) Michael McDowell, Ford, 499.
27. (16) Ross Chastain, Chevrolet, 498.
28. (20) Daniel Suarez, Chevrolet, 498.
29. (30) B.J. McLeod(i), Ford, 496.
30. (31) Cody Ware(i), Chevrolet, 495.
31. (35) Justin Haley(i), Chevrolet, 492.
32. (27) Ryan Newman, Ford, 491.
33. (37) Garrett Smithley(i), Chevrolet, 490.
34. (36) Quin Houff, Chevrolet, 483.
35. (33) Josh Bilicki(i), Ford, 483.
36. (26) Ryan Preece, Chevrolet, Brakes, 414.
37. (38) Timmy Hill(i), Toyota, Engine, 206.
38. (34) Joey Gase(i), Chevrolet, Electrical, 10.
Average Speed of Race Winner: 70.968 mph.
Time of Race: 3 Hrs, 42 Mins, 48 Secs. Margin of Victory: .472 Seconds.
Caution Flags: 15 for 91 laps.
Lead Changes: 15 among 7 drivers.
Lap Leaders: K. Larson (P) 1-55;C. Elliott (P) 56-62;K. Larson (P) 63-84;C. Elliott (P) 85-199;M. Truex Jr. (P) 200-204;C. Elliott (P) 205-341;J. Logano (P) 342-350;C. Elliott (P) 351-380;A. Dillon 381-385;M. Truex Jr. (P) 386-388;D. Hamlin (P) 389-437;M. Truex Jr. (P) 438;D. Hamlin (P) 439-477;A. Bowman 478;D. Hamlin (P) 479-493;A. Bowman 494-501.
Leaders Summary: (Driver, Times Lead, Laps Led) Chase Elliott (P) 4 times for 289 laps; Denny Hamlin (P) 3 times for 103 laps; Kyle Larson (P) 2 times for 77 laps; Alex Bowman 2 times for 9 laps; Martin Truex Jr. (P) 3 times for 9 laps; Joey Logano (P) 1 time for 9 laps; Austin Dillon 1 time for 5 laps.
Stage #1 Top Ten: 9,5,19,24,2,18,3,48,22,10
Stage #2 Top Ten: 9,48,24,19,11,10,20,2,18,1
Championship Standings: 1. Kyle Larson – 5,000 (9 wins); 2. Chase Elliott – 5,000 (2 Wins); 3. Martin Truex, Jr. – 5,000 (4 Wins); 4. Denny Hamlin – 5,000 (2 Wins).
