Christopher Bell Triumphs, Alex Bowman Among Eliminated At Bristol

Bob Pockrass

FOX Motorsports Insider

BRISTOL, Tenn. — Chase Elliott wrecked out early of the NASCAR Cup Series opening-round elimination race Saturday night at Bristol Motor Speedway.

He got out of his car and thought he would be eliminated.

But Elliott, in reality, was only going to be in jeopardy if Alex Bowman could win the race, which would have eliminated a driver ahead of him in the points.

Bowman restarted third with four laps remaining but was on old tires and couldn’t do much as Christopher Bell ended up blowing by him and the rest of the drivers on old tires on his way to snapping a 24-race winless streak.

The four drivers who entered below the playoff cutline were eliminated as they didn’t earn enough points to leapfrog those ahead of them and didn’t win in order to earn an automatic berth to the next round. Bowman, Austin Dillon, Shane van Gisbergen and Josh Berry saw their championship hopes end.

While they left disappointed, Bell capped a first round where Joe Gibbs Racing drivers — Chase Briscoe, Denny Hamlin and Bell — swept the races of the opening round.

“A lot of fortune went into winning this race, making the right pit strategies, putting tires on at the right time, and making sure that you had a set of tires laying [there for the end],” Bell said.

Christopher Bell snapped a 24-race winless streak on Saturday night at Bristol.

BOWMAN CAN’T RALLY

Bowman had a miserable two races to open the playoffs but was the biggest threat for a walk-off win-and-in. He had put himself in position to at least have a shot at the end in a race where tires degraded quicker than expected, forcing drivers to not race at 100 percent but manage the tire wear.

The Hendrick driver finished eighth.

“I’m proud of the effort,” Bowman said. “We’ve never gone out the first round, so that’s frustrating. But after the last two weeks, just being top-10 and being pointed in the right direction feels good.

“It’s easy to be frustrated, but I feel like we did all we could today. And looking back on it, it’s kind of all you can ask for.”

Bowman was out of fresh tires when the leaders pitted prior to a four-lap dash to the finish.

“There wasn’t really much I could have done,” Bowman said. “I knew with how hard I ran, that it was going to be really bad on that restart. … Not much we could have done differently, but you’ve got to try.”

Alex Bowman had his playoff hopes dashed at Bristol.

MORE DISAPPOINTMENT

Berry had a fire — likely the result of tire rubber getting hot on an exhaust or other pipe — that resulted in a last-place finish. He finished last in each of the three playoff races.

While they didn’t finish last, van Gisbergen (26th) and Dillon (28th) were never factors in the race.

None of the three were projected to advance without having some of their best performances of the season.

“We’ve qualified well,” Berry said. “We’ve had good cars. We just haven’t had the good finishes. That’s just part of it.

“I don’t think you could ever script three last-place finishes in the ways that we’ve gotten them over the last few weeks.”

Dillon entered the closest of any of the drivers as he was 11 points behind Austin Cindric.

“We wanted to be able to race hard, and it came into just a putting around, trying to make tires live kind of race — and our car wasn’t good for that,” Dillon said.

SURVIVE AND ADVANCE

While Briscoe, Hamlin and Bell won races to advance, nine drivers earned enough points in a round that typically is considered a “survive-and-advance” round.

Ryan Blaney (fourth), Joey Logano (fifth), William Byron (12th), Tyler Reddick (15th), Ross Chastain (19th), Austin Cindric (30th), Denny Hamlin (31st), Kyle Larson (32nd), Bubba Wallace (34th) and Elliott (38th) advanced.

Just how tense was it? Elliott, when he was told he was pretty much going to advance as long as Bowman didn’t win, responded: “Pretty much doesn’t make me feel better [about advancing].”

Chase Elliott survived in the playoffs despite a rough night at Bristol.

Elliott could feel good once Cindric had trouble late and even if Bowman had won, Elliott would have advanced.

Virtually all of the playoff drivers had trouble at one point or another.

“There were chances tonight to get spun out,” Chastain said. “There was such a difference in speed and cars that aren’t [typically] competitive with us that were better tonight with all the [tire] circumstances, and they’re just blasting my back bumper off.

“It was just crazy. But good to survive because we could have been wrecked a dozen times tonight.”

A driver such as Chastain, who has a much stronger history at tracks in the upcoming round (New Hampshire, Kansas and the Charlotte road course), can put a rough few weeks behind him.

“We’ll go to win, not survive,” Chastain said. “We want to win, but the end of the day, you have to survive.”

Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR and INDYCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass.

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