NASCAR champions Brad Keselowski and Martin Truex Jr. were among the first four drivers knocked out of the playoffs Saturday night at Bristol Motor Speedway, where Kyle Larson cruised to an easy victory.
The first of three elimination races in the 10-race playoffs began with Denny Hamlin, Truex, Keselowski and Harrison Burton all below the cutline and facing elimination from the 16-driver field.
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Hamlin, a three-time Daytona 500 winner with four career wins at the track in Bristol, Tennessee, was never really worried and finished fourth.
“My aspiration was winning,” Hamlin said. “It's as good as what we've been here the last couple times. It's all offense from this point forward.”
Burton, who used a surprise win at Daytona last month to qualify for the playoffs in the final few weeks before he loses his seat with Wood Brothers Racing, was doubtful to recover enough to advance and finished 35th. Keselowski, the 2012 Cup champion, and 2017 champion Truex had a better shot at salvaging their playoffs but both came up empty.
Truex was penalized for speeding on pit road, taking him out of contention to advance, and Keselowski just didn't have the pace. Joe Gibbs Racing also had two of its four cars eliminated from the playoffs as Ty Gibbs was also penalized for speeding.
Keselowski finished 26th.
“Didn't have the pace we wanted. We ran as hard as we could, there just wasn't anything there,” Keselowski said. “Just gotta be faster.”
Truex is retiring from full-time racing at the end of the season.
“That kind of screws up your whole season,” Truex said of the speeding penalty. “It's on me. It was my mistake. Just really sad for my guys. We had a really good car. I hate I screwed it up, would have at least tried to see what we could do.”
Larson, meanwhile, led 462 of 500 laps, the most since Cale Yarborough led 495 laps in 1977. Larson's laps led is the most ever by a Hendrick Motorsports driver and marked the fifth win of the season for the driver of the No. 5 Chevrolet.
He led all but 38 laps at Bristol.
It's an impressive stat considering the Hendrick team has fielded cars for Hall of Fame drivers Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, Terry Labonte and Dale Earnhardt Jr., among others.
“That's pretty awesome because there's been some legendary Hall of Famers race for Hendrick Motorsports, and we've all grown up watching Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson dominate,” Larson said. “So pretty cool to get my name on another record at Hendrick Motorsports.”
Daniel Suarez, who finished four laps down in 31st, squeezed out the final spot into the second round of the playoffs by 11 points over Gibbs.
Also advancing were Chase Elliott, who finished second, Christopher Bell, who finished fifth, Ryan Blaney, Joey Logano, Chase Briscoe, William Byron, Austin Cindric and Alex Bowman.
Hendrick's entire four-car Chevrolet lineup advanced, as did all three Ford drivers from Team Penske. But Toyota lost a pair of JGR entries, and Ford lost two cars in Keselowski and Burton.
LaJoie's final ride
Corey LaJoie had already been told by Spire Motorsports it was not bringing him back next year, which gave him the rest of this season to finish out strong.
Then Spire threw him a lifeline with an unusual driver swap with Rick Ware Racing that will move Justin Haley into the Spire No. 7. LaJoie will replace Haley at RWR starting next week at Kansas Speedway.
While Haley's deal guarantees him the seat in 2025, LaJoie will have to earn the RWR ride. But in the meantime, he wanted one final good finish with Spire. He qualified ninth and was running 11th when he was involved in a crash that essentially ended his career with Spire.
Up next
NASCAR opens the second round of the playoffs at Kansas Speedway, where Tyler Reddick won last fall and Larson won in May. Bell takes a six-point lead over Larson into Kansas.
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AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing