Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Ty Gibbs and Martin Truex Jr. had the speed to erase their respective points deficit in the Round of 16 elimination race at Bristol Motor Speedway on Saturday evening. But untimely speeding penalties eliminated their track position and hopes of advancing to the Round of 12.
The JGR teammates came to play in the opening round, with Truex earning seven stage points and Gibbs tallying three. That’s when Gibbs’ race went awry, as the No. 54 Toyota was the first driver to get caught for being too fast on pit road.
Truex kept his track position in Stage 2, powering to second position — a country mile behind a dominant Kyle Larson. Gibbs maneuvered through traffic and reached 19th. Meanwhile, Daniel Suarez, who entered the race with a 36-point buffer over the elimination line couldn’t race inside the top 30 and fell multiple laps down.
Gibbs continued moving forward to begin Stage 3. Corey LaJoie brought out the final caution with 171 laps remaining, sending all the lead-lap cars to pit road. Truex exited the pits in second position, but was caught speeding by .09 mph and had to restart at the rear of the field.
With a strong restart, Gibbs shot up to eighth position. Meanwhile, Truex lingered and fell a lap down. With the laps clicking off, Suarez made Gibbs’ task of getting by the No. 99 Chevrolet an uphill battle. Ultimately, Gibbs was too loose trying to get by on the bottom lane and burned up his right-rear tire. The No. 54 car sunk through the field, finishing 15th, one lap down.
“At one point there, I felt bad for [Gibbs] because I had to hold him back quite a bit and he got passed, but I had to do that,” Suarez said. “I wasn’t fast enough to run away from him, so I had to play games to be able to affect him as much as possible in a clean way.”
Chris Gayle, crew chief of the No. 54 car informed Gibbs during the cool-down lap that the team didn’t score enough points — 11 points short — to advance to the Round of 12.
“It’s just unfortunate,” Gibbs told NBC Sports. “I feel like we were really good in practice and qualifying and just too loose tonight and fire off too tight. The speeding penalty is on me. We’re running the lights so close and I got a little bit too much, I guess.”
Truex could only muster a 24th-place effort, missing the Round of 12 by 21 points. Had he not sped on pit road, it’s reasonable to think he could have battled inside the top five with a shot of pointing his way through.
“It’s really tough when it’s .09 mph that screws your whole chance at a good season up,” Truex said. “I don’t know how that happened; I didn’t know I was that close. I felt like I did the same thing as every other stop. Sometimes, you’re a foot to the left. It’s so tricky when you’re going from that curve section to the straight and hit your lights. It was on me – it was my mistake.
“They said we were going to have to run second or third to have a chance, and I don’t know if we could have done it, but it would have been nice to see. We got a lot of stage points, we did what we needed there. I hate that I screwed it up. I wish we could have at least seen if we could have done it; it would have been fun to have a fighting chance.”
Since finishing eighth at Pocono in mid-July, Truex has eight straight finishes of 20th or worse. The No. 19 team had an average finish of 26.3 in the Round of 16.
With Truex’s early departure, it means that one of the most successful drivers in the Playoff era — made five Championship 4 appearances — won’t have the opportunity to walk off into the sunset with a championship, as the 2017 Cup champion retires from full-time competition at the conclusion of the season. But Truex put the onus on himself.
“You never like to let anybody done, no matter what the situation is,” Truex said of the pit-road speeding penalty. “I hate that I did that tonight.”