“I told him, ‘you about got both of us, you little shit,’ but by the end of the Bank of America Roval 400 both Denny Hamlin and Tyler Reddick advanced into the NASCAR Cup Series Playoff Round of 8.
There was a moment on Lap 32, where it looked like Reddick had just eliminated himself and his team owner, with a deep move into Turn 7 that bent the toe link on the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 11 and nearly broke the one on the 23XI Racing No. 45.
Hamlin was just teasing about the ‘little shit’ part but given how these first two rounds have gone for the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 11 team, it certainly felt like the most likely ending for their latest playoff run. And the first two rounds certainly didn’t go any better for the regular season champion No. 45 team.
In that moment, in real time, the thought had to cross the minds of everyone involved that this is how it ends.
“It’s tough,” Reddick said. “You just have to stay calm. You just have to stay focused. In those moments, it is so easy to lose control. Either way, I was going to drive the car as fast as I could. It just worked out for us that this thing was able to get back through the field and get us to the good side of the cut line.”
Chris Gabehart, crew chief for Hamlin and the No. 11 team, showed no signs of stress either.
“Yeah, so you know, you don’t get to this level of competing and not love to compete at a really high level and be able to thrive in this pressure,” Gabehart said. “For me, the more I do it, the more comfortable I get with situations. We’ve been through so many of them now as the No. 11 team, and haven’t bee able to hoist the big trophy yet, but short of doing that we have gone through a lot, good and bad, over the years.
“You go through all of that, and you know what the moment calls for, so I was in tune with the situation the whole time. That doesn’t mean over the next three or four weeks that I won’t get emotional and want more but certainly, the nervousness in these situations left me a few years ago.”
Hamlin didn’t have as severe a damage as Reddick, and Gabehart didn’t even call his driver down pit road, but Reddick spent the next fraction of the race near the back of the field needing adjustments to compensate for the damage.
When the final caution waved with 25 laps to go, Reddick was outside the top-20 and below the cutline and crew chief Billy Scott called him down pit road for another adjustment and more importantly, four fresh set of tires.
Reddick drove from the back to 12th and advanced by four points over Joey Logano (before the post-race disqualification) and the case can be made that it was purely on the merit of his regular season championship, with came with five more bonus playoff points than Kyle Larson in second.
“I mean, yeah, those 15 points certainly got us through the round and probably through the first round too,” Reddick said. “So yeah, at some point, we need to get back to the speed and performance that made us regular season champions in the first place.
“We got three more chances now to have that kind of a day.”
Hamlin was ultimately impressed with his ‘little shit,’ too.
“I was really proud of his drive,” Hamlin said. “I mean, just as hard as it is to pass, generally speaking on road courses, and knowing his car is not optimal, for him to drive back to the front, that he did so was really impressive.”
Bowman DQ changes things
Of course, a little bit has changed since the finish of the race, when it looked like Reddick advanced over Logano but a minimum weight infraction in post-race inspection changed the complexion of the Round of 8.
The Charlotte Roval was the Round of 12 cutoff race and Alex Bowman’s disqualification meant that the No. 48 team was eliminated from both the driver and owner’s championship with Logano instead making it in and Reddick’s No. 45 making it into the owner’s.
Remember that Larson missed the Coca-Cola 600 and that was the difference between his Hendrick Motorsports No. 5 car winning the owner’s regular season championship and Reddick winning the driver’s regular season title, giving him the points that at first sent him into the Round of 8.
Anyway, this is what the Round of 12 looked like before the Bowman disqualification.
And this is what it looks like now, barring an appeal.
Should Hendrick Motorsports appeal, they will have to prove that the weight that came off the No. 48 car happened due to extenuating circumstances.
That is because NASCAR also penalizes teams for unsecured ballast and that could leave the team paying fines and facing suspensions to crew chief Blake Harris and other team personnel.
At the same time, an appeal will be the only shot the team has at overturning the disqualification and getting Bowman and the No. 48 team back into the playoffs before the Round of 8 begins next weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
This might be the moment where that weight was lost.
“I didn’t crash but that was the hardest I’ve ever hit anything in my life,” Bowman said after the race. “It’s just a car thing, right? These things have big rub blocks underneath them and when they come down, you hit that and it’s really solid. How I was following the 1 and someone else, I couldn’t see and was too far to the left and kind of just launced over that. My mistake. Caused that for sure. Glad we didn’t tear anything up and on to the next one.”
Bowman also said ‘I hit hard enough to tear a lot of stuff up’ and as it turned out, he might have.
1a and 1b
With his statement win on Sunday, Kyle Larson is now up to six on the season and is still the favorite to at least make the finale at Phoenix next month.
That six is double the number of wins as anyone else.
“The field knows that we’re strong,” Larson said. “I think the field knows that we could win at any track.”
But there is one other driver that Larson feels like is equally capable.
Hamlin.
“I mean, I still view Denny as probably being the guy that has the speed that we do,” Larson said. “He’s just had a run of some crappy luck really for a while.”
Larson had to recover from the late season engine seal penalty that cost him over 10 playoff points, and then some misfortune with so many wild card tracks like Atlanta, The Glen and Talladega, but the 11 team has been consistently on par with the 5 team all year and Larson knows it.
“Especially, I think when you look at the next four tracks, Denny could win at any of them,” Larson said.”
Hamlin certainly feels that way with a final round that includes more performance based tracks in Las Vegas, Homestead and Martinsville.
“Really happy to still be alive,” Hamlin said. “Obviously, our first two rounds were bumpy but we got the finishes we needed and now we go race.
“You feel like you’re in kill mode of mode now. These are really good tracks for me.”
But of course, the Final Four is just that four and Larson knows the hot hand can carry anyone over the next four races.
“I think William too,” Larson said. “He’s sneaky good. Blaney for sure as well. I mean, you can make a case for anybody in the final eight. But yeah, I would say Denny because he and I have been the two consistently fastest cars.
“If I had to pick one guy, it’s him.”