Tag: Homestead

‘You got to try to find a way to finish it, and just didn’t’ – Hamlin

Denny Hamlin was where he wanted to be at the end of Sunday’s race at Homestead-Miami Speedway, but it wasn’t enough to finish first. Hamlin wound up third in the Straight Talk Wireless 400, losing the lead with two laps to go. He was passed by Ryan …

Denny Hamlin was where he wanted to be at the end of Sunday’s race at Homestead-Miami Speedway, but it wasn’t enough to finish first.

Hamlin wound up third in the Straight Talk Wireless 400, losing the lead with two laps to go. He was passed by Ryan Blaney going into Turns 3 and 4, and then by the car he co-owns, driven by Tyler Reddick, on the final lap.

“I’m not really sure,” Hamlin said of what he could have done differently. “I tried to cover all lanes, but just couldn’t quite get off the corner as good as I needed to there on that short run. The short run wasn’t my specialty all day, obviously.

“But either way, controlling the race with two to go, you got to try to find a way to finish it and just didn’t.”

Hamlin took the lead on the final restart of the afternoon with seven laps to go. He restarted on the outside of the second row and drove around Blaney and Reddick going into Turn 1. The initial gap he built over Blaney was erased when the reigning series champion used the bottom lane to pull even with Hamlin off Turn 2 in the final laps.

It was a day the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing team needed. Hamlin led 21 laps and earned 14 stage points.

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Chris Gabehart, Hamlin’s crew chief, also chose an alternate strategy to help his driver with track position. Gabehart ran Hamlin long on green flag fuel runs, which put him in the middle of the top 10 when it cycled out, but gave his driver fresh tires to make up the difference on the long runs.

In stage two, the call allowed Hamlin to drive through the field to win the stage. The same strategy was in play again in the final stage when Hamlin did not pit until 39 laps to go. Again, at a deficit, he needed to erase 18s with 25 laps to go to get to the lead.

Hamlin was running sixth with 22 laps to go and into fourth place with 17 laps to go. When the cycle completed, as Reddick was also on the same strategy, Hamlin was running third and was 6s behind. Then came the final caution with 13 laps to go, which moved Hamlin to second place coming to pit road.

He left pit road in the same position, but Reddick stayed out on track to inherit the race lead and set up the final run to the finish.

“Chris gave me everything I needed there to try to race him,” Hamlin said. “Just didn’t get it done.”

A victory not meant to be an aside, Hamlin did close the gap on a transfer spot into the championship race. He entered the weekend in a 27-point deficit, but is now 18 points behind going into the elimination race at Martinsville Speedway (Nov. 3, 2 p.m. ET).

“It’s another opportunity,” he said, “Certainly you’re not out of it until they throw the checkered flag at Martinsville.”

Blaney has just one more chance after Homestead defeat

Ryan Blaney has plenty to think about leaving Homestead-Miami Speedway after being bested by Tyler Reddick in the final two corners on the final lap. Blaney finished second in the Straight Talk Wireless 400 and remains out of a transfer spot with …

Ryan Blaney has plenty to think about leaving Homestead-Miami Speedway after being bested by Tyler Reddick in the final two corners on the final lap.

Blaney finished second in the Straight Talk Wireless 400 and remains out of a transfer spot with one race left in the NASCAR Cup Series’ Round of 8. The reigning series champion had taken the lead from Denny Hamlin with two laps to go Sunday, but was then passed by Reddick, who flew by on the outside, on the final lap in Turn 3. The side-by-side between the two drivers didn’t last long as Reddick finished the pass in Turn 4 and drove to the victory.

“It’s obvious disappointment,” Blaney said. “I had a great shot to win and I didn’t have a very good last lap. Man, I thought I got into [Turn] 3 hard and [Reddick] just blitzed it off in there and it stuck for him, which is pretty impressive. I hate we gave one away there like that. I don’t know if we gave it away; we got the lead back after losing it on the restart and the last lap just didn’t really play out for us.

“It definitely stinks. I appreciate everybody on the [No.] 12 team for bringing a really fast race car. We had a great shot to go to Phoenix, and still got one more chance, so we still have to look forward to that.”

Blaney restarted on the inside of the front row for the final green flag with seven laps to go, but Hamlin grabbed the top spot by going to the outside of Blaney and Reddick in Turn 1.

With two laps to go, the Team Penske driver used the bottom lane to get to the inside of Hamlin for the race lead. He completed the pass in Turns 3 and 4 coming to the white flag. Reddick went to second place on the final lap off Turn 2 and easily drove around the outside of Blaney, who left a lane open, going into Turn 3.

“Yeah, a shame,” Blaney said. “I’ll be picking through what I should have done different [all night], probably, and that’s just the way it goes. Overall, really proud of the effort and hopefully we can bring it to them next week.”

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Monday will be the first chance Blaney has to look ahead to Martinsville Speedway (Nov. 3, 2 p.m. ET). Until then, he admitted, “This feeling will suck,” after being so close to a victory. Although he tries not to stew on results, he said there are tons of things he could have done differently on the final lap.

To start, there was no getting to the bottom in Turns 1 and 2, which gave Reddick clean air as he moved around Hamlin. It wasn’t even possible to slide up in front of Reddick in Turn 3 — the timing worked better for Reddick to drive it further into the corner and make it stick.

“The Toyotas could do that really good all day,” Blaney said. “Their entry speed was crazy fast and it benefitted him there. It stinks. It was an up and down day and it was a shame to lose one on the last lap like that.”

Blaney led 47 laps at Homestead-Miami Speedway and earned 13 playoff points. He’s now 38 points out of a transfer spot going into the final race of the penultimate round, but he is the defending winner at Martinsville.

“I’m not fired up right now for Martinsville,” Blaney said. “I’ll take the night to replay a couple things and figure out what I could have done better. Tomorrow morning, we’ll re-stack and get ready for Martinsville.

“I’m excited, though. I’m super excited about the speed we had today. I can’t complain about that. Last week’s speed was great, too, before we got in the wreck. Hopefully we bring that same speed to Martinsville.”

Reddick wins tooth and nail fight at Homestead to advance to Cup Series Championship 4

Tyler Reddick is headed to the Championship 4 to compete for the NASCAR Cup Series championship after a third-to-first last lap drive to win Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Reddick wrapped the bottom around Turns 1 and 2 and completed a pass on …

Tyler Reddick is headed to the Championship 4 to compete for the NASCAR Cup Series championship after a third-to-first last lap drive to win Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

Reddick wrapped the bottom around Turns 1 and 2 and completed a pass on boss Denny Hamlin for second position on corner exit on the white flag lap. The 23XI Racing driver then drove around the outside of leader Ryan Blaney to make the winning pass through Turns 3 and 4. The victory capped off a day where Reddick started from the pole, won the first stage, and led a race high 97 laps.

 

It is the first time Reddick will compete for the Cup Series championship.

“We were backed in a corner, man; we had no other choice,” Reddick said. “I know we were on a tire deficit, and here at Homestead that’s a death sentence, but I don’t care. We did what it took to win this race [and] we’re fighting for a championship.”

Blaney finished second and Hamlin, who won the second stage, finished third. Hamlin was leading with two laps to go before Blaney took the top spot in Turns 3 and 4 coming to the white flag.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Reddick said of the winning pass on Blaney. “I just knew I needed to get even with him on his right-side door; I didn’t care what he did. He raced me clean. I appreciate it. I’m really, really excited that we’re going to have a shot at this championship.”

The run to the finish was seven laps after a caution for a Kyle Larson spin. Larson was racing Blaney for the lead when he spun trying to squeeze in the middle of Blaney and Austin Dillon in Turn 3.

Reddick stayed on track and inherited the race lead having run long on the previous fuel run. Blaney led Hamlin and Chase Elliott off pit road.

“Billy [Scott] made a call that looked a little scary because we were going to run out of gas,” 23XI co-owner Michel Jordan said of the pit strategy. “We knew we needed a caution at the end and anything can happen after that. As you can see, Denny was up there, and the little kid drove his [butt] off. I’m proud of him.

“He just let go, he just went for it, and I’m glad. We needed it.”

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On the final restart, Hamlin took the lead by going to the top in Turns 1 and 2. He drove around Reddick and Elliott, who restarted on the front row. Blaney and Reddick settled into second and third place before the frantic run to the finish.

“It’s obvious disappointment,” Blaney said. “I had a great shot to win and I didn’t have a very good last lap. Man, I thought I got into [Turn] 3 hard and [Reddick] just blitzed it off in there and it stuck for him, which is pretty impressive. I hate we gave one away there like that. I don’t know if we gave it away; we got the lead back after losing it on the restart and the last lap just didn’t really play out for us.

“It definitely stinks. I appreciate everybody on the [No.] 12 team for bringing a really fast race car. We had a great shot to go to Phoenix, and still got one more chance, so we still have to look forward to that.”

Christopher Bell finished fourth and Elliott completed the top five. William Byron finished sixth; Alex Bowman, seventh; AJ Allmendinger, eighth and Carson Hocevar, ninth. Ryan Preece rounded out the top 10.

Larson finished 13th. He was scored third after his spin but lost six spots on pit road when his Hendrick Motorsports team had to knock a diffuser flap back in place. The spin was the second incident of the day for him, after hitting the wall on lap 48 because of a flat right rear tire.

Joey Logano was the lowest finishing playoff driver in 28th position, but he’s under no pressure after clinching his spot in the championship race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

There were 33 lead changes among 11 drivers in Sunday’s Straight Talk Wire 400, plus six caution flags.

The four drivers out of a transfer spot going into the final elimination race at Martinsville Speedway (Nov. 3, 2 p.m. ET) are Larson, Hamlin, Blaney, and Elliott. Larson is at a seven-point deficit while Hamlin is behind 18 points, Blaney is behind 38, and Elliott the furthest behind at 43 points.

RESULTS

Hill roars to Xfinity Championship 4 with win at Homestead

An emotional Austin Hill climbed out of his No. 21 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet on the Homestead-Miami Speedway frontstretch to celebrate one of the most significant race wins of his burgeoning career – claiming the Credit One NASCAR AMEX …

An emotional Austin Hill climbed out of his No. 21 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet on the Homestead-Miami Speedway frontstretch to celebrate one of the most significant race wins of his burgeoning career – claiming the Credit One NASCAR AMEX Credit Card 300 trophy Saturday and securing one of four positions to race for a trophy in the Nov. 9 series championship finale.

Hill – who also swept both of the race’s stage wins — took the lead from Stewart-Haas Racing’s Cole Custer with 11 laps remaining Saturday evening at the 1.5-mile South Florida track and raced off to a healthy 3.045s win over the fellow Playoff driver and reigning series champion Custer.

It was the fourth win of the season for Hill and 10th of this career. But importantly, it is the first time the 30-year-old Georgia native will have a chance to race for the championship trophy after multi-win seasons the last three years.

 

“I worked so hard for this. A lot of people doubt me but I wake up every day to prove them wrong,” Hill said. “I deserve to be here and I deserve to race for a championship. This No. 21 team deserves it just as much as I do. They work their [butts] off each and every day just like I do. I’ve got to give it up to those guys. They gave me a hell of a car.

“I can honestly say I’ve never cried coming to the start-finish line, but I had to get my emotions together going into Turn 1 after the checkered. All the hard work and dedication that goes into this. I don’t think everyone’s going to understand what this means for me, for my family and for [sponsor] Bennett. … I had to be on it today.

Pausing to take it in, he added, “This is amazing. To be able to go the Final Four. I’ve worked so hard at this and my dreams came true.”

With his win and A.J. Allmendinger’s victory last week at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, now only two positions remain for the title chase with one more race remaining – at the Martinsville (Va.) Speedway half-miler next week – to establish the championship foursome.

JR Motorsports driver Justin Allgaier – who only had three previous top-10 finishes at Homestead – took the checkered flag in eighth place which was good enough to keep the driver of the No. 7 JRM Chevrolet with the points lead in third place should he need that to advance to the championship race.

Custer, whose No. 00 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford led a race best 87 of the 200 laps, is now on that fourth-place cutoff line with a 28-point advantage over Saturday’s race pole-winner Chandler Smith. Smith, finished 13th and as with the bottom four ranked drivers is essentially in a must-win situation next weekend.

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Hill’s rookie teammate Jesse Love ran up front much of the day and finished fourth. He’s now sixth in the points standings – 35 points below Custer.

“It just shows you how good you have to be to get in the Championship Four,” Love said, noting of the Phoenix finale, “I feel like if we could get there we have a shot to win.”

JR Motorsports teammates Sam Mayer and Sammy Smith finished ninth and 22nd, respectively and find themselves in a similar must-win situation to Chandler Smith and Love next week at Martinsville.

Joe Gibbs Racing’s Aric Almirola finished third Saturday behind the Playoff drivers, with Love and JGR’s Sheldon Creed rounding out the top five. Custer’s SHR teammate Riley Herbst, RSS Racing’s Ryan Sieg, Allgaier, Mayer and last week’s race winner Allmendinger completed the top 10.

Of note, 18-year-old William Sawalich finished 24th in his much-anticipated Xfinity Series debut.

The NASCAR Xfinity Series moves to the Martinsville (Va.) Speedway half-miler next week for Saturday’s National Debt Relief 200 (4 p.m. ET on The CW, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Allgaier is the defending race winner. Almirola won at the track this Spring.

RESULTS

Enfinger snatches second straight Truck Series win at Homestead

A strategy call from the pit box coupled with a patient move forward landed veteran Grant Enfinger his second consecutive NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series Playoff race win in Saturday’s Baptist Health 200 at Homestead-Miami Speedway while his closest …

A strategy call from the pit box coupled with a patient move forward landed veteran Grant Enfinger his second consecutive NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series Playoff race win in Saturday’s Baptist Health 200 at Homestead-Miami Speedway while his closest competitors ran out of fuel behind him in the closing laps.

Enfinger, who won the opening race in this Playoff round at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway three weeks ago denied the other seven Playoff racers a chance at an automatic bid into championship contention. So now at least two drivers will advance based on points-earned with only next Saturday’s race at Martinsville, Va. to settle which other three drivers move onward into the title fight.

Enfinger’s No. 9 CR7 Motorsports Chevrolet suffered damage on an early race restart, and the team opted to move to a different pit strategy – taking tires and fuel on lap 80 while most of the day’s previous race leaders opted to pit later on lap 100. Ultimately Enfinger was able to both save enough fuel and race off to enough advantage that no one was able to catch him as he raced away to his 12th career victory.

Taking the lead for good with 22 laps remaining, Enfinger claimed a 17.5s win over ThorSport Racing’s Ty Majeski as other trucks on a similar alternate strategy to Enfinger – the No. 38 driven by Layne Riggs and the No. 2 driven by Nick Sanchez — began running out of fuel in the final two laps.

 

Enfinger had enough fuel he even did a burnout to celebrate the win.

“At the end of the day, [crew chief] Jeff [Stankiewicz] just had the best truck out here,” said Enfinger, who actually made up a lap on track after contact on a race re-start cut his tire earlier in the day.

“Our car was really fast after about five laps yesterday [in practice] and was the same way today. Jeff did a good job managing me with the tires and then managing me with the fuel. I feel like I saved at least 20 percent more than I did in the first run. Jeff was on me pretty hard obviously and the No. 38 [Layne Riggs] ran out and the No. 2 [Nick Sanchez] did too.

“Hard to beat these two weeks,” he added with a grin.

“We’ve had potential all year,” the 38-year-old Alabama native continued. “There’s been sometimes, I haven’t executed and sometimes we’ve just had bad luck. Maybe it’s just time we get our momentum now.”

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Connor Mosack finished a career best third-place in the No. 7 Spire Motorsports truck. The day’s most dominant truck, driven by TRICON Garage’s Playoff driver Corey Heim finished fourth after leading a race best 68 of the 134 laps. Heim continues to lead the championship standings and is now 49 points above fifth place with the top-four drivers advancing to the title race.

“Overall, a good day for points, but disappointing,” said Heim, who has a series best six wins on the year. “We were so fast last year and wanted to come back and redeem ourselves and win the race of course. But no complaints as far as points go, makes Martinsville a little bit easier if we put together a decent day.”

McAnally-Hilgemann Racing’s Playoff driver Tyler Ankrum, finished fifth – his best finish of the Playoff run to date. Veteran Stewart Friesen was sixth, followed by Daniel Dye.

And three Playoff drivers – Spire Motorsports’ Rajah Caruth, McAnally-Hilgemann’s Christian Eckes and Tricon Garage’s Taylor Gray rounded out the top-10.

Heading into the next race, Heim has that 49-point edge above the cutoff line. Eckes is 38 points to the good and Majeski now holds a 22-point advantage. Caruth is ranked fifth, the first driver outside the Playoff bubble, 22 points back. Gray is 24 points back and Ankrum and Sanchez – who finished 13th after running out of fuel – are 41 and 43 points behind, respectively.

Frankie Muniz, the popular actor from the Malcolm in the Middle television series, finished 33rd in his series debut, his truck suffering mechanical problems early in the race.

The NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series races in the Zip Buy Now, Pay Later 200 at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway next Friday evening (6 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) to settle the Championship Four field. Eckes won the race there this April.

RESULTS

Chance to return to Miami ‘a big draw’ for Formula E – Dodds

Formula E’s calendar for the upcoming 2024-25 season, announced today, featured the standout revelation that the series would be returning to Miami for the first time in a decade. The championship visited the south Florida city in its inaugural …

Formula E’s calendar for the upcoming 2024-25 season, announced today, featured the standout revelation that the series would be returning to Miami for the first time in a decade.

The championship visited the south Florida city in its inaugural season, with a race on the streets being won by Nicolas Prost for the e.dams Renault team ahead of Scott Speed for Andretti and Abt Sportsline’s Daniel Abt.

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Formula E has made no secret of its desire to increase its footprint in North America, having also raced in Long Beach in that first year (as well as the year after), New York between 2017-22, and north of the border in Montreal in 2017. More recently it’s raced in Portland – where it will return in two-week’s time – but while the Pacific Northwest event was a huge success on its debut last year, the championship couldn’t resist the lure of Homestead Miami Speedway.

Formula E’s only previous visit to Miami came in its first season. Andrew Ferraro/Motorsport Images

“We think it’s a really good circuit, well suited to our style of racing, and the Miami name that comes with it, from a global audience, a global television audience, is a big draw,” Formula E CEO Jeff Dodds said of the move to Miami.

“I thought it was a very successful race in Portland last year, a very strong turnout and ticket sales have been pretty good this year as well for what is a doubleheader,” he said of Portland. “The race in Portland last year was a little bit of a surprise for us, I think. It delivered a much better race than we thought it might, and I think it being an IndyCar track, that opened our eyes up to the possibility of using other IndyCar tracks in the U.S. and the IndyCar crowd who largely came to watch it, because it is an IndyCar crowd there, were very very positive about our style of racing, the infrastructure we brought, the extent of the show.”

But while Miami’s return to the calendar has come at Portland’s expense, that’s not intended to be a trend that will continue, with Dodds describing the U.S as one of two “priority markets” for the series, along with China.

“We probably have around seven or eight different large U.S. cities currently talking to us about putting a race on in their city, so those conversations are live and always ongoing,” Dodds said. “One thing I’ve said previously is our calendar can sustain two races in North America and probably two races in China as the two locations in the world where we could put on two races, so I think what you might find in time is the North America market is an ‘and’, not an ‘or’, so we add an additional race location as opposed to continually changing out the U.S. locations.”

One potential additional U.S. location remains Los Angeles. Often talked about, it had been expected to be on next season’s schedule. But while Dodds confirmed “it’s not one for Season 11”, he did insist “I wouldn’t write off Los Angeles as a potential venue” for a future race.

IndyCar’s latest hybrid test felt ordinary – and that’s a good thing

Four cars and 12 drivers took part in the NTT IndyCar Series’ latest hybrid powertrain test across three days at Homestead-Miami Speedway’s roval, and like the last test at the same track, the news coming out of southern Florida was extremely …

Four cars and 12 drivers took part in the NTT IndyCar Series’ latest hybrid powertrain test across three days at Homestead-Miami Speedway’s roval, and like the last test at the same track, the news coming out of southern Florida was extremely positive.

With the familiar Chevrolet testing teams of Arrow McLaren and Team Penske joined by Honda’s Andretti Global and Chip Ganassi Racing, the foursome deployed different drivers in each car each day, and all totaled, another 1,202 laps—largely trouble-free—were completed and added to the 1,446 laps produced during the three-day January 29-31 test at Homestead-Miami.

Testing new software for the motor generator unit and the supercapacitor energy storage system created in a partnership between Chevy and Honda was a significant focus during the newest test.

Combined, 5,852 miles of hybrid testing has been logged in recent weeks and, barring a few minor glitches, the widespread running continues to be hailed as a major success.

“We didn’t have any big issues, which makes that two hybrid tests in a row that have been that way,” Andretti Global’s Kyle Kirkwood told RACER. “There were a couple of little software gremlins from new stuff that they’re trying, which is normal. Anytime you try something new, it’s not ever gonna work identically to what you expect it to do, so that was handled pretty quickly and everyone got on with their business.”

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In a short period of time, Andretti’s two-time race winner says IndyCar’s hybrid testing has become rather boring, which is a good sign. Most of the tests last year were fraught with problems and failures with the ERS units. Through six days and nearly 6000 miles of running with the latest specification of the MGU and ESS, zero failures have occurred.

“None so far, and we were really just logging miles and logging more miles and nothing really remarkable to report there, honestly,” Kirkwood added. “That said, they had a lot of new people there from both manufacturers, and they’re at a point now that they’re comfortable with the program that they have in place with the hybrid unit.

“It wasn’t like there was any ‘lightbulb’ moments this time. I feel like we’ve already got past a lot of those and they’re just refining the system. Honestly, they’re doing changes nonstop to the hybrid; every single run they tried something different and I almost never felt a change, which to me means it’s a good thing because they’re just running through confirmation checks on everything. In every scenario it was all working fine and just kept going. Nothing caught us off guard.”

Testing of the ERS units will continue later in March on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s road course. Other venues, including ovals, will be visited by the hybrid test teams before the systems are introduced in competition this summer. Taking into account how well the first and second tests have gone, Kirkwood, who was there for some of the rough tests in 2023, is a big advocate for the technology and how well it’s performing in 2024.

“The feeling is that it’s a safe and good product that we can put on track right now, which I think is why the manufacturers are starting to bring in a lot of new engineers to get them up to speed on the hybrid stuff and all the new gadgets and toys that they have to play with on their computers while we’re running,” he said.

“That was only the real difference compared to the previous tests. Yes, there is new software. Yes, they had a couple little gremlins early on, but once they got past that, everything was smooth sailing, just like it was at the previous test for us. We’re now just pounding around doing laps. That’s super encouraging for everyone, I think.”

Homestead IndyCar testing Trackside Report

IndyCar kicked off its first test ahead of the 2024 season on the Homestead-Miami Speedway roval and RACER’s Marshall Pruett was there to watch and gain insights from Chip Ganassi Racing’s Scott Dixon, Juncos Hollinger Racing’s Agustin Canapino and …

IndyCar kicked off its first test ahead of the 2024 season on the Homestead-Miami Speedway roval and RACER’s Marshall Pruett was there to watch and gain insights from Chip Ganassi Racing’s Scott Dixon, Juncos Hollinger Racing’s Agustin Canapino and Dale Coyne Racing’s Jack Harvey.

Click HERE to watch on YouTube.

Homestead – JGR’s tale of two races after Hamlin, Truex DNFs

Joe Gibbs Racing heads into the final elimination race of the NASCAR Cup Series postseason with two of its main players sitting on the outside looking in. Martin Truex Jr. and Denny Hamlin are both 17 points below the cutline. The duo had …

Joe Gibbs Racing heads into the final elimination race of the NASCAR Cup Series postseason with two of its main players sitting on the outside looking in.

Martin Truex Jr. and Denny Hamlin are both 17 points below the cutline. The duo had non-related issues at seemingly the same time Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway, both resulting in retirements from the race.

Truex finished 29th with what is suspected to be an engine issue. Under the lap 236 caution, Truex’s No. 19 Toyota began smoking out of the right side and after bringing it to the attention of his crew he was pushed behind the wall.

It had been a rough afternoon for Truex, who started from the pole. He had speed but again seemed to fight the handling of his car, particularly while in dirty air. The team was also bit by an untimely caution on lap 213 when the yellow flew after Truex had already made a pit stop.

The No. 19 was forced to take the wave around, which mired him deep in the field. Fortunately, a quick caution on the restart allowed him to rejoin the leaders. He was running 21st when the mechanical issue struck.

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Coincidentally, the caution where Truex exited the race was brought out by his teammate. Hamlin hit the wall in Turn 1 while running third. It was unclear in the immediate aftermath what caused the issue.

“We tried and it just didn’t work out,” Hamlin said of his day. “Unfortunate for this Sport Clips Toyota team. We really battled back well today – just a tough break.”

Hamlin led 31 laps. He had been battling Ryan Blaney for the lead on the lap 230 restart before falling to third when teammate Christopher Bell passed them both in a three-wide move in Turns 3 and 4.

Truex did not address the media.

“I think it shows you how hard our sport is,” Joe Gibbs said. “We had such a disappointment with the No. 11, Denny, cutting a tire down. I felt like he was fast. Martin qualified on the pole. I thought we had a chance with that car. But just a series of circumstances, then lose the motor. It shows you how hard our sport is because those were two cars that, for a while, for us, were up front.”

Bell was the only Joe Gibbs Racing driver who made the Championship 4 last season. Truex did not make the playoffs but rebounded and won the regular season championship this year. Hamlin was eliminated at Martinsville Speedway, where the series visits next.

Truex’s average finish in the postseason is 20.7. He’s made the Championship 4 on five occasions.

Hamlin’s average finish in the postseason is 14.1. Four times he’s been in the Championship 4.

‘I didn’t expect him to slow down so early’ – Larson on pit road crash

Kyle Larson felt the victory at Homestead-Miami Speedway would be determined by who had control of the race coming off pit road, and by trying to be aggressive during a round of green flag pit stops, Larson took himself out of contention. On lap …

Kyle Larson felt the victory at Homestead-Miami Speedway would be determined by who had control of the race coming off pit road, and by trying to be aggressive during a round of green flag pit stops, Larson took himself out of contention.

On lap 213, Larson followed race leader Ryan Blaney to pit road. The No. 5 kept up momentum and tried to close the gap coming to the commitment line, but quickly closed on the Ford, locked up the brakes and tagged Blaney in the bumper. Larson then hit the sand barriers that protect the outside pit wall.

 

The damage to the right front ended Larson’s day. He finished 34th after winning the first stage and leading a race-high 96 laps.

“I was just maximizing all I could and I didn’t expect him to slow down so early,” Larson said. “I was just trying to get to the yellow line as quickly as possible and felt like I was in control, and from my vantage point, he slowed down a lot. But from there (on TV) it just looks like I bomb it in there. I just need to look at some data and see where I was relative to pit road speed and all that.

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“I hate it for Ryan more than anything; he was doing a super good job out front, and his team’s been doing a really good job throughout the playoffs, and that was not my intention. I was just trying to get as close to his back bumper as I could to hopefully have a good cycle and have a better a pit stop and come out in front of him and control the race from there. Just upset more than anything with myself. Even if he did slow down, I still should have not pushed that hard. Just a bummer, and hopefully his team can recover from it.”

Blaney finished second and led 53 laps, moving above the playoff grid cutline by 10 points.

“I don’t really know what I was thinking during the initial part,” Larson said. “I was trying to stay off him as I knew I was going to probably hit him. I just locked the brakes up; I locked the fronts up and slid to the right and clipped the right side of his rear bumper, and that kind of shot me even more right into the barrels.

“I was in control of my car, I just didn’t anticipate him getting to pit road speed as early as he did.”

Larson is clinched into the championship race in two weeks after winning at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The No. 5 team was looking for their second consecutive win at Homestead.