WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. (AP) — Martin Truex Jr. tried to stay optimistic about his slim chance at winning a NASCAR championship in his final season before he conceded, “no matter what we do, it is wrong.” Chase Briscoe is last among the 16 playoff drivers, but he says, count him out at your own risk. Austin Cindric feels “fairly neutral” about surviving the final two races until four drivers are cut from the field.
As for Denny Hamlin?
“I certainly don’t love where I’m at,” Hamlin said.
Joey Logano won the Cup Series playoff opener last weekend at Atlanta Motor Speedway and the automatic spot in the second round that came with the victory, making him about the only driver feeling great this weekend at Watkins Glen International.
As for the other 15 drivers in the playoff field, it’s a combination of nerves, the harsh reality that a championship bid can come closer to the end — and a little bit of hope that a checked flag can keep that bid alive.
“I still think if I just do the best I can tomorrow, do the best I can at Bristol, it still will work itself out,” Hamlin said Saturday at The Glen. “But if it doesn't, it doesn't.”
Hamlin has 54 Cup wins without a championship in a career that dates to his 2005 debut, leaving the Joe Gibbs Racing driver arguably at the top of an ignominious list as NASCAR's greatest driver without a Cup title.
His pursuit isn't over yet and Watkins Glen isn't a bad track to race back into contention. He won at The Glen in 2016 and was runner-up at last season's race. Hamlin is 11th among the 16 drivers, just two points above the cutline.
Among the 15 drivers after Logano, 2023 Cup champion Ryan Blaney is second, Christopher Bell third, Tyler Reddick fourth and William Byron fifth. Alex Bowman, Cindric, Chase Elliott, Daniel Suarez, Kyle Larson, Hamlin and Ty Gibbs are above the cutline.
Brad Keselowski, Harrison Burton, Truex — who qualified second — and Chase Briscoe are the final four drivers.
The bottom four need incredibly strong points outings — or a win, of course — to remain in the field of 12 after next week’s cutoff race at Bristol Motor Speedway.
“In 2022, everyone said we’d be one of the first teams out, and we were essentially seven laps away from the final four,” Briscoe said. “I don’t think we take any of it personally. When we do our jobs and execute all day long, we can beat anybody. We proved that a couple of weeks ago.”
Briscoe was a surprise winner in the regular-season finale at Darlington Raceway to crack the playoff field, and the Stewart-Haas Racing driver sits 21 points below the cutoff. He crashed in Atlanta and finished 38th, a blow to his playoff hopes.
“I was amazed that I was only 21 points out,” Briscoe said. “I texted our team group chat a screenshot of being 21 out and said this was pretty doable. I think 21 points is still a lot, right? In the big scheme of things, you have two good stages and you’re right back in the mix.”
Watkins Glen underwent a makeover to the 2.45-mile road course, after drivers experienced high G forces to both sides of their head in recent races. Among the changes, the track removed elevated rumble strips and added smoother curbing transitions. The Glen’s “Bus Stop,” a critical corner on the track, was also reconfigured to address safety concerns and driver complaints.
The moves were made in large part to better keep drivers on the track and to lessen the violent nature of the turns on the drivers.
Larson complained of headaches the last two seasons, not just during the race, but even during the much shorter practice and qualifying sessions at The Glen.
“You’re just annoyed and your head hurts,” Larson said. “You just don’t feel crisp and clear. And you didn’t wreck, either.”
Larson was among the drivers that requested mouthpiece data — which measure head motion and impacts inside the helmet — that proved he was suffering after experiencing significant head accelerations throughout the race.
“I was hoping it was going to look how it did because if not, it's like, how do we fix this? Thankfully, the results showed there's a lot of moments (on the track) and they were able to change the curbing,” Larson said.
Hamlin said after he qualified that the track was “better than it was” in previous years and he hoped drivers would escape Watkins Glen unscathed on Sunday.
Hamlin, who owns 23XI Racing with Michael Jordan, says he’s had no conversations with NASCAR after the race team skipped a deadline to sign a new charter agreement. After more than two years of contentious negotiations over a new revenue agreement, NASCAR finally got 13 organizations — all but two — to sign a new deal.
23XI and Front Row are the only two current chartered organizations that did not sign extensions that run through 2031.
“I don’t know where it really goes from here,” Hamlin said. “We’ll figure it out.”
Juan Pablo Montoya, Shane van Gisbergen and A. J. Allmendinger are among the road-course ringers in the race and each is a threat at taking the checkered flag.
Montoya, making his first Cup start in 10 years, won in 2010 at The Glen. Allmendinger won here in 2014 and the Charlotte road-course race last season. Van Gisbergen has three road-course wins in the Xfinity Series and won in his Cup debut last season in the Chicago street race.
The ringers might not matter as long Hendrick Motorsports drivers remain a threat to win. Hendrick drivers won the last five races at The Glen: Elliot won in 2018 and 2019, Larson won in 2021 and 2022, and Byron won last year.
“Once we figured out what it needed, we have smart drivers and smart crew chiefs and we all contribute and get a package that we like, and then we go from there,” Byron said.
Sure enough, Bowman starts fourth on Sunday.
___
AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing