Bearden Breakdown: First Data 500

By Aaron Bearden, Motorsports Editor

Post-race review and analysis from the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race at Martinsville Speedway. 

Who Won? 

Joey Logano. He executed a bump-and-run in the final set of turns to snag his first win at Martinsville.

Who Claimed the Stages?

Denny Hamlin and Joey Logano. The top two finishers at race’s end secured stage victories en-route to their strong finishes.

Top Stories

Short track showdown

NASCAR’s fall trip to Martinsville Speedway has become a jewel on the annual Cup schedule, with short track tempers and playoff drama combining to generate instant classics in nearly every iteration since the elimination playoff format was first implemented in 2014.

Sunday’s latest trip was no different.

Joey Logano and Martin Truex Jr. engaged in a classic short track finish to set off the latest storyline, rivaling the tale of Denny Hamlin and Chase Elliott in 2017, as well as Logano’s previous Martinsville run-in with Matt Kenseth in 2015.

The two drivers found themselves in a battle for the lead to close out the race after working through vastly different circumstances to arrive there.

Logano and the No. 22 team effectively dominated the event, leading a race high 309 laps and elevating the 2015 Daytona 500 winner back to the lead on pit road whenever he lost the top spot to control the event.

Two strong stage performances left Logano on the right side of the Championship 4 cutoff heading into the closing laps, but he still faced the risk of points racing over the final two races of the Round of 8 without a win.

Truex surged to the front to cap off a difficult day, battling from the back of the field after his No. 78 Toyota failed post-qualifying inspection. The New Jersey native was well clear of the cutoff on points, but knew his first short-track win was there for the taking. A berth in the finale was possible, despite a Round of 12 that left many doubting the lame duck Furniture Row Racing’s odds.

With 10 laps remaining Logano held a slim advantage over Truex, leaving both drivers in a position they had known before.

Logano led late in 2015 before being infamously crashed by Kenseth as payback for an earlier run-in at Kansas Speedway. Truex found himself in the runner-up spot just last season, letting Kyle Busch drive off to the win before beating his rival at Homestead for the title.

Last year Truex was content to surrender the battle to win the war. He had a healthy playoff point cushion to fall back on and served to gain more by avoiding the addition of Busch as a rival than guaranteeing himself a spot in the Championship 4.

This year, though? The circumstances were different. Truex entered the Round of 8 as the weakest of the Big Three, making him beatable with the right combination of surprise winners or misfortune.

So when the opportunity to win the same race came around a year later, Truex had to strike.

The defending champion kept things clean, but took an aggressive fight to Logano over the closing laps. A steady assault allowed Truex to muster a charge to the inside lane that proved to be enough to propel him to the lead on the final lap.

After a 499-lap battle through the field, the veteran emerged from Turn 2 for the final time in position to secure his first short track win.

Then came contact.

Logano moved Truex and emerged a winner – his Championship 4 berth secured.

But he did so amid controversy, adding another rival to his long list of playoff foes.

“They won the battle, but he didn’t win the damn war,” Truex said afterward, his disgust shining through in a candid post-race interview.

“I’m just not going to let him win it,” he said of Logano’s title hopes. “I’m going to win it.”

Truex’s issue lied not with losing to Logano, but in the way he was defeated. The veteran felt he’d raced the former championship runner-up clean and fair, only to have laps of hard work ripped out from under him in a single moment.

“I was next to him for six laps,” Truex said of the late battle. “I never knocked him out of the way. We were going to race hard for it in my book. I cleared him fair and square.

“We weren’t even banging doors for me to pass him. He just drove into the back of me and knocked me out of the way. That’s short track racing, but what goes around comes around.”

Traditionally regarded as a clean driver, Truex had raced Logano the way he wanted to be raced.

He expected – or at least hoped – for the same treatment in return. But in the playoff era, the value of an advancement-sealing win was too much for Logano to ignore. The Connecticut driver was unapologetic for engaging in an old-school bump-and-run.

“That was just a hard great race,” Logano said. “NASCAR racing at its finest. It was a lot of bumper banging towards the end and a hard race. You know, we didn’t wreck each other. We bumped into each other a lot and that is what this sport was built on.

“I know a lot of fans out there aren’t too happy about it but it is racing and that is what NASCAR is about and what stock car racing is.”

Truex referred to the late contact as a “cheap shot,” but Team Penske owner Roger Penske defended his driver’s actions.

“He’s a racer and should know better than to say that,” Penske said of Truex. “That’s as clean a shot as you can have in a race like this.  I didn’t hear Kyle Busch or the (No.) 42 (Kyle Larson) have any kind of conversation after that race.

“To me, I’m really looking forward. We want to go to Miami. Joey ran a great race. As far as I’m concerned, that’s just a comment that I don’t think we deserve.”

Logano pulled a classic short track move and secured a Championship 4 berth in controversial fashion. He didn’t crash Truex, but in moving the No. 78 out of the way Logano left himself open for a similar move somewhere down the road.

There’s a chance nothing will come of it this season. But should Logano stand between Truex  and victory sometime in the future – particularly at Homestead with a championship on the line – don’t be surprised if the No. 78 team returns the favor in a big way.

“It sucks, but that’s the way it goes,” Truex said. “I can promise you, I won’t forget what he did.”

Big two for the Big Three

The Big Three’s planned ascent to Homestead is growing increasingly arduous.

NASCAR’s top trio looked up to the necessary form in the short-track showdown at Martinsville. Truex rallied through the field before the aforementioned bump-and-run. Busch was a consistent contender throughout the day en-route to a fourth-place result. Kevin Harvick fell a lap down early, but rallied to salvage a top 10 and maintain his advantage in the standings.

But in the midst of a good points day the group conceded one of the four available Championship 4 spots to Logano and Team Penske – a result that leaves Truex, Busch and Harvick in a precarious position heading into Texas Motor Speedway and ISM Raceway.

All three drivers currently hold a healthy advantage the standings. Busch lies 46 markers clear of the bubble, while Harvick and Truex are tied with a 25-point cushion. However the group are now one additional surprise winner away from being forced to compete amongst each other for playoff positions.

The distant gap for the other quartet of contenders likely means they’ll be aggressive in search of wins over the next two races. Should one of their strategies work out, then at least one member of the Big Three will enter Homestead outside of championship contention.

Busch left Virginia in the best position of the three, with a 21-point edge over the other two Big Three drivers should anything wild happen. But the Nevadan was still disappointed even after a third stage rebound, based strictly on the value of the win that slipped way.

“We made a big change there the start of the third stage and that absolutely made us horrible, but somehow we were able to rebound so I think we finished better than we should have,” Busch said. “We certainly wanted to get more out of here and wish we could have won.”

Harvick was left with little to celebrate after enduring another tough outing in what’s been an exceedingly difficult playoff run. The 2014 Cup champion set his focus onto Texas, where he hopes to take himself off of the cutoff.

“I think next week is our best bet as we go into the next two races I look at Texas as our best race track,” Harvick said. “We ran really well there in the spring and won the race there last year and our mile and a half stuff has been really good.”

The most confident of the trio was Truex, despite the obvious disappointment of a narrow defeat.

Truex entered the Round of 8 predicted by many to be eliminated after a challenging Round of 12. In coming from the back of the pack to contend for the win, the New Jersey native made a statement to re-establish himself as a favorite.

“Proud of our team,” he said. “Everybody said we were out, said we couldn’t run good at Martinsville, we don’t run good at short tracks, our team’s shutting down so we can’t make it to the Championship 4.

“Yeah. I’m going to show everybody.”

There isn’t too much cause for concern just yet among any of the Big Three. Busch, Harvick and Truex still control their own fates, and their speed continues to be strong enough to keep them in contention for race wins at any remaining track.

But for the first time this season, every winless driver in the playoff field feels prone to elimination. The next two weeks should prove tense for any contenders that can’t join Logano as round winners.

So Close

Denny Hamlin and Brad Keselowski arrived in Martinsville with no championship to compete for. Only race wins and the opportunity to help their teammates held any true importance.

So the disappointment each veteran felt from failing to secure a win in the closing laps was noticeable.

Hamlin entered Martinsville with hopes of salvaging a win in the midst of a difficult season. The Virginian had yet to claim a victory, suffering through the longest season-opening winless streak of his career, and he had only four races remaining to steal a win.

He nearly did just that on Sunday. Hamlin entered the final lap in third, within sight of leaders Logano and Truex. When the top duo collided in the final turns, Hamlin emerged from Turn 4 to challenge both drivers in the final sprint to the line.

The 2016 Daytona 500 winner managed to pip Truex at the stripe for second, but Hamlin couldn’t get past Logano before the start-finish line.

“I knew they were going to get into each other,” Hamlin said. “They were leaning on each other pretty good there for a couple laps. It seemed like whoever was on the outside could kind of pinch the inside guy off.

‘I knew it was coming, but I just hoped it would be a little more dramatic.”

Hamlin’s second-place run was his second in the past four races, following a similar performance at Dover International Speedway. The urge to win and continue his streak of winning seasons was high, but for the second time in a month he’d fallen just short.

All Hamlin could do what shake his head, share a frustrated tweet and shift his focus on to Texas.

Damnit

— Denny Hamlin (@dennyhamlin) October 28, 2018

“I mean it’s as bad as I’ve wanted anything,” Hamlin said of his urge to win. “We’ll look ahead. We’ve got three good race tracks ahead of us and we’ll see if we can get it done.”

Before Hamlin’s late surge to contention it was Brad Keselowski who seemed poised to rob the remaining playoff drivers of a race win. Keselowski rose through the field in the second half of the race and overtook his teammate for the lead on Lap 419.

The Michigander held the top spot with ease until a caution flag brought the field to pit road on Lap 460. But Keselowski dropped to third on pit road, failed to overtake Logano on a late challenge and faded to fifth in the closing laps.

“We had a good run there,” Keselowski said. “We were really good on the short runs but we struggled a little bit on the long runs and it just didn’t end up playing out there for us at the end. It is good to see Joey (Logano) get to victory lane. Happy for Team Penske.”

Other Notes

• It was a solid day in Virginia for JTG Daugherty Racing. In a race with only 20 lead-lap finishers, both Chris Buescher (13th) and A.J. Allmendinger (14th) managed strong top-15 runs. The result was particularly notable for Allmendinger, whose future is unknown with Ryan Preece set to inherit his Cup ride next season.
• Ty Dillon also enjoyed a solid run, challenging for a top-10 throughout the day before settling for a 15th-place result. The run was Germain Racing’s best on a non-restrictor plate track this season.
• Sunday offered a reprieve from relatively disappointing seasons for Ryan Newman and Daniel Suarez. The pair both managed to gain their ninth top-10s, coming home eighth and ninth in what might be one of their last races in their current rides. Newman is already confirmed to be moving to Roush Fenway Racing next season, while Suarez has been heavily rumored to be replaced by Truex next season, though nothing has been confirmed.
• Hermie Sadler made a rare return to the cockpit on Sunday, competing for Premium Motorsports. Early mechanical problems eliminated Sadler from the race, but the 49-year-old was still able to enjoy 230 laps in just his second Cup race of the past six seasons.
• William Byron’s rapid, successful ascendance to Cup hasn’t translated to a strong rookie season. The defending Xfinity Series champion suffered his ninth DNF in 33 starts on Sunday, a result that left him saying he “would not wish this year on anyone.”