AVONDALE, Ariz. – While Kyle Busch was celebrating in victory lane on Sunday at ISM Raceway, four drivers saw their hopes of winning the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series championship officially dashed.
Aric Almirola, Chase Elliott, Kurt Busch and Clint Bowyer were the four drivers knocked out of the playoffs at the one-mile desert oval on Sunday, each with their own set of misfortune after having hopes of advancing at various points during the penultimate race of the season.
Among that quartet, Almirola came the closest to crashing the Championship 4 at the end of the 312-lap distance. He restarted alongside the younger Busch brother on the front row with 12 to go Sunday, but couldn’t stay alongside and eventually faded back to fourth at the checkered flag.
Had he been able to steal the victory, Almirola would have moved into the final race of the season at Homestead-Miami (Fla.) Speedway with a shot at his first Cup Series title, but it just wasn’t meant to be.
“I thought we were a seventh to sixth-place car today, honestly, and that’s what I thought we were yesterday too. Johnny and all these guys just fought their guts out and I fought my guts out inside the race car and gave it everything we had to even have a chance,” said Almirola. “We took a seventh or eighth-place car and put ourselves in position to win the race.
“What we’ve accomplished in one year is a hell of a lot, but right now all I can think about is being inside of Kyle down there in the new (turns) one and two and just not being able to get the power down to get up beside him,” Almirola added. “It’s bittersweet. It was a good day for us, but today we needed to win and we didn’t quite get the job done.”
Kurt Busch and Elliott were both eliminated from contention in one frenetic restart with 44 laps left, after a four-wide battle for the lead between both Busch brothers, Erik Jones and Denny Hamlin went wrong in an instant off the second corner.
As Jones spun the tires and began to fade through the middle groove, Hamlin washed up into the side of Kurt Busch’s Ford and pinched him into the outside wall. Kurt Busch then bounced down the track and went nose-first into the side of Elliott’s Chevrolet, ripping the side off Elliott’s machine in the process.
Though Elliott’s Hendrick Motorsports crew valiantly made repairs to the No. 9, he lost three laps in the process and limped home in 23rd after winning the first stage and leading three times for 16 laps.
Elliott lamented a speeding penalty with roughly 80 laps to go as the reason he was swept up in the multi-car melee in the first place.
“If I don’t speed before that, I don’t get caught back there in the back at all,” said Elliott. “It was completely my fault and when you make mistakes like that, you get put behind and that’s when you get wrecked.
“I had a pretty good NAPA Chevy, especially on the long runs. We could run with those guys,” he added. “I couldn’t get going quite as good as I wanted to. If we’d stayed away from that penalty … you never know what could have happened. I hate it, but we’ll try to get a win next week (at Homestead).”
