TALLADEGA, Ala. – Two candidates to win the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship last season won’t get a second chance at Homestead-Miami (Fla.) International Speedway next month.
Denny Hamlin and Ryan Newman were both eliminated from the Chase for the Sprint Cup Sunday afternoon at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway after a chaotic ending to the CampingWorld.com 500 lived up to the hype of the track’s unpredictable outcomes.
Hamlin called his day at Talladega self-inflicted, as the team struggled to repair the roof hatch on the No. 11 FedEx Toyota Camry after it became dislodged from the car forcing critical green flag pit stops which quickly took the Joe Gibbs Racing team from contention.
To add insult to injury, Hamlin found himself in an accident at the green-white-checkered restart, which was trigged by reigning series champion Kevin Harvick. With a destroyed car, Hamlin finished 37th, joining teammate Matt Kenseth as two of the four drivers eliminated.
“4 (Kevin Harvick) could only run at about 30 miles per hour so I think he saw people coming and he knew he was going to be 30th, last car on the lead lap so caused the wreck,” said Hamlin.
“That’s not here nor there. We had a self-inflicted day, took us four times to get our roof fixed. It’s unfortunate, I feel like I’ve done all I could possibly do to advance in a three-race season. I feel like we could have won next week. I really can’t spin any positive on it right now.”
Meanwhile, Ryan Newman couldn’t dig himself out of the bottom four drivers needing to win in order to advance and himself being surrounded by bruised and battered race cars on the final restart left the Richard Childress Racing driver displeased with the late race turn of events.
Newman voiced his displeasure about the ending of Sunday’s race, where NASCAR waved off the attempted final restart as the cars of Jimmie Johnson and Kyle Larson crashed before the leaders hit the start-finish line.
When the field bunched up again, chaos ensued again on the frontstretch forcing NASCAR to throw the caution and end the race. Afterwards, Newman was adamantly frustrated when asked about his game plan for overtime.
“Which one? The final, final restart?” he said. “Or, the one where we were only going to have one and not anymore? And then the No. 4 (Kevin Harvick) causing the crash. Which one do you want me to talk about? I’ll be honest. I am extremely disappointed in the situation and what all transpired. I’m not happy coming up one position short under these circumstances.”
Still short on answers, Newman summed up the best way to move forward from Talladega’s rumble.
“We’ll just go to Martinsville like everybody else,” offered Newman post-race.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. joined Hamlin, Kenseth and Newman as those eliminated from title contention following the 32nd race of the season.
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
