By David Morgan, Associate Editor
BRISTOL, Tenn. – The status quo remains in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs after the first elimination race in Saturday night’s Bass Pro Shops Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway.
The four drivers that entered the night under the cut-off line (Austin Dillon, Shane van Gisbergen, Alex Bowman, and Josh Berry) were the four unlucky drivers to have their postseason cut short just three races in.
Of the four, Bowman had the best shot at turning the tables on his Playoff rivals, running up front for most of the night and climbing as high as second-place at one point in the race.
His chances of being able to pull the upset grew even larger when his Hendrick Motorsports teammate Chase Elliott crashed out at Lap 311 and Austin Cindric dropped like a rock down the leaderboard when his car caught fire briefly and forced an emergency trip to pit road.
Bowman just needed to go out and complete the Hail Mary by winning the race and securing his spot in the next round, but unfortunately it was not to be.
After finding himself with the lead in sight on the final restart, Bowman would get swallowed up in the chaos and eventually finished the race in seventh place, a far cry from the win he needed to advance.
Bowman would climb from his car afterwards with his head held high knowing he had a shot and turned the tide for the No. 48 team, giving them something to build off of the next seven weeks.
“I don’t think you can really point at something that cost us. Being out of tires at the end isn’t good, right, and honestly, we just played the hand that we could and stayed out,” said Bowman.
“But if I had to pick one thing, our cycle tire restarts were just really poor. I couldn’t go at all. Zero grip. Our restarts on stickers or even when we’d put our qualifying scuffs on and stuff, it was fine, but cycle tires was really bad.
“Hats off to our whole Ally 48 team. They did a good job throughout the course of the day and trying to be better after a rough last two weeks, and I think we swung it the right direction, and we can continue to do that for the next, what do we have, seven weeks left. We’ve just got to keep digging.
“Certainly sucks to not transfer, but our back was against the wall coming in here. We knew it was going to be a tough thing to do.
“Yeah, not a terrible day for us, and we’ll keep digging.”
Further down the running order, Shane van Gisbergen, the road course ace for Trackhouse Racing, not only faced the challenge of trying to conquer Bristol and secure his place in the next round, but also had to deal with the same tire issues that plagued the rest of the field.
A tall task for a driver in his first full-time season in the Cup Series.
Van Gisbergen would find himself involved in no less than three spins throughout the night, eventually limping his No. 88 Chevrolet home in 26th place, three laps off the lead.
“I’m happy but frustrated,” said van Gisbergen. “Proud; it’s a privilege to be here but also pissed at myself. The last few week I just haven’t been good enough.
“I’ve been really doing well, getting better at ovals and I just haven’t performed the last couple weeks. Didn’t understand the track early enough there and what the tires were doing and how to save them.
“I blame myself at the moment, but thanks to the Trackhouse team we’ve had an awesome year and still not over yet, but I need to be better myself and it’s just going to come with time.”
Then there was Austin Dillon, the next of the Playoff drivers to get eliminated, who also had a rough go of it on the Bristol high banks. Dillon would suffer with tire issues early on, which was compounded by a pit road penalty.
He would spend the rest of the night fighting from behind and would ultimately finish the night in 28th place, four laps down.
“We just couldn’t go as far as the field on tires,” said Dillon. “Our setup just wasn’t conducive to that, and then no matter how easy I went, it was just chewing tires.
“It was just an unfortunate night for the No. 3 Bass Pro Shops / Winchester Chevrolet team. I just wish we would have had the ability to run as long as the other guys and I think we would have been OK. I tried a lot to save it, but it was just out of my hands.”
Last, but not least was Josh Berry, who exits the Playoffs having finished last in all three races during the first round.
After abysmal days at Darlington and Gateway, Berry was in a must-win position on Saturday night and he would exit stage left only 75 laps into the 500-lap event.
Berry’s night took a turn for the worse when excessive rubber build-up caused a fire in the right front of his No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing Ford, forcing him to make an emergency pit stop with smoke beginning to billow into the cockpit of his car.
Though the team worked to try and extinguish the flames, they would have to extricate him from the smoke, bringing his night to a close.
“Maybe seven or eight laps before we came down pit road we started getting some smoke in the cockpit, and then the longer I went the darker the smoke got and then, obviously, by the time we got on pit road it was completely black smoke,” said Berry.
“Something obviously caught on fire, so probably once again a car burned up for no reason.
“I don’t think the fire made it inside the cockpit. It was just a lot of smoke. It seemed like the fire stayed in the fender well, which is a good thing, but it’s just disappointing again.”
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