Martin Truex Jr. made it into the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs despite a tense situation when he crashed out on the third lap of the Southern 500 on Sunday.
Drivers like two-time series champion Kyle Busch, and last year’s playoff participants Bubba Wallace and Chris Buescher, weren’t as lucky. Chase Briscoe used a late three-wide pass to take the lead and hold off Busch to win the race.
Busch faced a second consecutive close call missing the postseason for the first time since 2012, also finishing second to Harrison Burton a week earlier at Daytona.
Busch thought he had a chance to catch Briscoe and got close to his back bumper in the final laps, but he couldn’t pass him.
“To come in here in a last-ditch effort and have a shot,” Busch said, noting he hasn’t won in his last 47 races. “Early in the race, I wouldn’t have thought we’d have a shot so I really felt like we overachieved.”
Buescher, who won three races to reach the playoffs last year, finished last in the projected field but couldn’t pass Truex for the final playoff spot.
“We thought we did what we needed to do today,” said Buescher, a driver for Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing.
“We’ve been so fast and outrun so many of these cars that are going to run for a championship,” he added. “But that’s the system we’re in.”
Truex’s place in the playoffs seemed uncertain when he collided with defending champion Ryan Blaney, causing both cars to go to the garage. However, after two stages (230 laps) at Darlington Raceway, NASCAR confirmed that Truex, the 2017 series champion, was locked into the 16-driver field.
Truex is in his last full season with Joe Gibbs Racing. He started the race 58 points ahead of the cutoff for the playoffs, which begin next week at Atlanta. He felt confident about being in 14th place on the playoff grid going into the weekend.
The crash left Truex watching the race and hoping others behind him wouldn’t do enough to push him out of the playoffs.
“It was all my fault, all my doing,” Truex said outside the infield care center.
Truex explained that he had a run on William Byron’s No. 24 car when he lost control. “I thought everything was going fine and I ran into him. Obviously, that was on me,” he said.
Blaney, like Truex, was taken to the care center. The Team Penske driver said he was in pain at first but felt he would be okay as he gets ready to defend his series title starting next week in Atlanta.
“I saw Martin get loose, and I thought he was going to spin to the bottom, so I kind of gassed up to get around him, but it was just terrible timing,” Blaney said. “He overcorrected, and we were just right there.”
Truex’s JGR teammate, Ty Gibbs, qualified 15th on points.
Wallace, who started from the pole position, was the first driver out of playoff contention, 21 points behind Buescher when the race began. 23XI co-owner Michael Jordan was in his pit box to watch the race.
“Got caught up in someone else’s mess,” Wallace said about the multi-car wreck 24 laps from the end. “Unfortunate. I hate it for our guys.”
Truex’s crash briefly knocked him out of playoff position. Even though he made it in, he knows he needs to improve to make a strong run in the playoffs.
“It sucks. We just had a miserable two months,” he said. “Tonight was on me, sorry to my team and all the guys who work so hard.”
