Veterans hope to repeat Bristol success after Watkins Glen disaster

WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. — Three NASCAR Cup Series veterans stood out for all the wrong reasons on a disastrous day for most of the 16-driver playoff field.

Martin Truex Jr. had some positives, leading the field to the green. Meanwhile, a first-lap wreck collected Denny Hamlin and Brad Keselowski, setting Hamlin back a lap.

The team had to change the left-rear toe link and Hamlin said the steering “lagged.”

Hamlin got the free pass during the break for stage one, which Martin Truex Jr. won. Truex was in good position throughout the first stage, leading up to the stage win. However, the stage break changed things as he pitted and dropped back to 18th.

Truex led the drivers who pitted during the break. However, he couldn’t make up any ground and even lost a couple of spots. That forced crew chief James Small’s hand to bring him to pit road before the end of stage two.

When the final stage started, Truex was in good shape. He sat ninth with a solid advantage to the cutline after entering the day below the cutline.

The same couldn’t be said for Keselowski and Hamlin. Keselowski backed a penalty during his stage one stop with a penalty during his stage two stop. For the trifecta, he made contact with Hamlin, causing him to wreck not long after the final stage started.

In the end, Hamlin finished 23rd, still on the lead lap and almost the best of the trio of veterans. More on that later.

All the while, Truex had smooth sailing until a caution flew for Harrison Burton blowing a tire with 11 laps to go. That caution came not long after Brad Keselowski pitted for tires on a strategy to go long and have fresher tires, in the event of a caution like that.

But Keselowski didn’t get a chance to flex his rubber. Joey Logano, who was on the same strategy, made contact with Keselowski, turning him and William Byron sideways. The contact launched Byron into the air, causing him to the wall and bounce back into Keselowski, nearly intruding on his window net.

Keselowski couldn’t recover from this. He finished 26th.

It wasn’t much better for Truex who fell back to 16th during the first round of bumper cars that Keselowski and Byron’s wreck ended. Then, in the second round, it was Truex who wrecked.

Ultimately, the 2017 NASCAR Cup Series champion finished 20th on the day. He’s in a tricky spot heading to Bristol with nary a care in the world.

“You get green-white-checkered at the end of the race, and you know people are just going to drive through someone. We were on the wrong lane, on the short end of the stick as usual. We were in a decent spot there with our Reser’s Camry, and you go through the esses, and they just plow through you and put you in the marbles. This racing is just ridiculous,” Truex said.

Truex will retire from full-time racing at the end of the season. He sits below the cutline, heading to Bristol where he finished second to Hamlin in the spring.

“I feel like we can go there and win. We are going to an oval – back to a normal track. We can control our own destiny there,” Hamlin said.

Hamlin has won the last two races at Bristol. Even with high tire wear as a factor, he still looks good as he won in the spring and led a group of five lead-lap cars.

Joining him, Truex, Alex Bowman and Kyle Larson on the lead lap was Brad Keselowski, who finished third with 50 points, six more than what Hamlin earned.

Going into Bristol, Hamlin is -6 points to the cutline while Keselowski is -12 points and Truex is -14, behind Ty Gibbs, the first driver above the cutline.

As we told you before Watkins Glen, Gibbs has been fast at Bristol too, which could pose issues for drivers like Chase Briscoe (+6 points to the cutline), William Byron (+25), Kyle Larson (+26), Ryan Blaney (+29), Chase Elliott (+30), Tyler Reddick (+30) and Daniel Suarez (+36) if any of them have issues at Bristol like so many playoff drivers did at Watkins Glen.