Xfinity 500 Weekend at Martinsville Speedway
RIDGEWAY, Va. — Denny Hamlin and his No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing team needed to have a perfect afternoon at Martinsville Speedway to make the Championship 4. They treated the penultimate race of the 2023 season as a must-win, although they sat just 17 points below the cutline.
But as Ryan Blaney went out and won Sunday’s Xfinity 500, that left no room for Hamlin, who scored 53 points on the day, to advance.
Hamlin won the opening stage. He finished second in Stage 2 and came across the line third. The 42-year-old from Chesterfield, Virginia did nearly everything he needed to do, but still fell eight points short.
“The 12 was just a little better than what we were today,” Hamlin said on pit road after the race. “If you told me I was guaranteed that the second best car, I would have taken it. [To finish] top three in all stages and ended the race — that’s a really good showing.
“[Blaney] definitely had the best car we, were next in line. I just wouldn’t do anything different. There’s nothing I could have done I feel like through these playoffs to be any different. On a day where we had to have a phenomenal day, we did. It just wasn’t quite good enough.”
Hamlin and Blaney battled for the lead throughout the day, bumping and roughing each other up on restarts — but in a clean, respectful way. A defining moment came during a Lap 323 caution when Michael McDowell went for a spin exiting Turn 2. Several cars, including Chase Elliott and Aric Almirola, stayed out while the leaders headed to pit road for their final service of the day.
The sequence tucked Blaney and Hamlin deeper in the pack, although they had a tire advantage. Blaney, however, made it through traffic quicker and more efficiently. With 22 laps to go, Blaney snuck past Aric Almirola to seal his Championship 4 future and end Hamlin’s.
But the window wouldn’t have been kicked open for Hamlin to point his way in if it hadn’t been for a rough afternoon for William Byron. He finished 13th and did enough to transfer into the Championship 4, but failed to score any stage points. After Stage 2 concluded, Hamlin was tied with the No. 24 car in overall points.
“We were still good enough to get the best out of our day,” Hamlin said. “It was a blast racing with Blaney there on those restarts, crossing each other over. I know the show was tough. The passing was tough today, but at least we could show out just for a few laps there.
“He’s trying to hold me up high, I’m trying to cross him over and it nearly wrecks him. It was fun. I mean, in retrospect now that nobody had any problems, the best car won.”
(Photo: Phil Cavali | The Podium Finish)
Hamlin wouldn’t have been in this position, though, if it wasn’t for a catastrophic failure last weekend at Homestead-Miami Speedway. While running third with 32 laps to go, a power steering belt failed, resulting in Hamlin crashing and finishing 30th.
Crew chief Chris Gabehart chalked it up as fault of the team. It wasn’t some freak ordeal. It could have been prevented, he said.
“We should have been through, not even close, if it’s not for fumbling last week at Homestead and making a team mistake that takes us out,” Gabehart explained. “That’s where we lost. That’s where we didn’t get into Phoenix. It forces everybody to dig deep and find a little more and come to Martinsville. Would we have turned in this performance if our back wasn’t against the wall? That’s the human element, you’ll never know.
“It’s not luck. You make your own luck. The things that happened last week — you guys are never going to know the details about them, but I do. Ultimately, there’s not luck in that. Luck is for weak people, the way I truly view it. Now, there’s circumstance. Somebody blows up in front of you and you slide in their oil and you hit the wall — so be it. But you know, unless it’s a lapped car that you were lapping for the 13th time, you probably shouldn’t have been behind them to begin with. That’s just the way I choose to view it because those are the things that I can control. I can’t control this X-factor, black cat crap. I can control being good enough to be up front and lead all the laps of every race and win every race. I can control not having a power steering failure last week, and when I say I, I mean the team. We just have to be better.”
After Hamlin made the Championship 4 in three consecutive seasons, it’s been two consecutive heartbreaking exits from the playoffs at Martinsville. Last year, he ended up on the wrong side of Ross Chastain’s Hail Melon that prevailed the No. 1 team to the title race. This year, it was an untimely steering failure.
Hamlin has finished in the top five of points eight times in his future Hall-of-Fame career, winning 51 Cup races. He’ll go another year, though, without a crack at his elusive first championship.
(Photo: Phil Cavali | The Podium Finish)
“Luck is a factor in this sport, and when you take small sample sizes to crown champions, sometimes the lug doesn’t fall your way,” Hamlin said. “It just seems like I’ve been unlucky in the playoffs. I can’t remember too many years where it’s like we just were not good enough to be in the final four. There’s been a few years, but not that many. To be probably fifth in points now, probably going to finish five straight years and the top five, we’re doing great. I couldn’t be with a better team. It’s just — I keep crapping out.
“I can’t tell you the mindset of the years that I’ve had where I fucked up and I knew that I kept us from going to the next round or not winning a championship. I just know that’s all I’ve got. That’s all I’ve got in my tank. I’m pushing every lap. I [came] through the field like the 12, but he came through better because he was better. I can’t second guess or doubt myself because I know that there’s nothing else I could have done, absolutely nothing else. It just got unlucky last week.”
But what makes Gabehart the most proud is how the No. 11 team responded after last week. He’s won 19 times with Hamlin in his race cars — and that number nearly climbed to 20 Sunday afternoon.
“In 2019, we wrecked at Texas and had to go to Phoenix with a must-win,” Gabehart said. “A core group of these guys, including Denny, did it in a convincingly clear fashion. Unfortunately, we had another failure at Homestead last week that put us on a virtual must-win this week and we came up just barely short of fighting out of the corner and doing it again.
“You look at the list of teams that have had walk-off Round of 8 wins — I’m confident I can count them on less than one hand. I can think of Bell (2022), I can think of Harvick (2014) and I can think of us. Maybe there’s one more but we damn sure nearly made it two, so I’m proud of that. “
