Ryan Blaney advanced to the Championship 4 with an emphatic victory at Martinsville Speedway, where William Byron squeaked into the title race.
Blaney led 145 laps in his No. 12 Ford to earn his second victory of the season and his first at short track in Martinsville, Virginia, beating Aric Almirola by 0.889 seconds.
“Yeah, it’s awesome,” Blaney told NBC Sports’ Marty Snider. “I grew up in High Point (North Carolina), not too far from here. Really cool. Wanting to win here for a long time. Been super close for many years. Awesome to close it out.”
After winning at Talladega Superspeedway to make the Round of 8, Blaney finished sixth at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, second at Homestead-Miami Speedway and first at Martinsville to make his first title race.
“I felt like we put together a really strong playoffs,” Blaney said. “Especially the Round of 8. Yeah, just overall really proud of the whole effort. (Team owner Roger Penske) couldn’t be here, unfortunately, but I know he’s watching. This is awesome. Can’t wait to get to Phoenix next week.”
Denny Hamlin led a race-high 156 of 500 laps to finish third, coming up eight points short of Byron in advancing to the Cup championship showdown at Phoenix Raceway. He rebounded from a 30th at Homestead-Miami Speedway last week.
“The mechanical failure last week with the power steering that sealed our fate,” Hamlin told NBC Sports’ Parker Kligerman. “Really proud of this whole team for showing up today when we really needed to, having probably a mid 50-point day. They did great. They did absolutely great.
“The 12 car was the best car today, so congrats to them. All the Final 4 that made it. It’s going to be great. Hate we’re not in it with our FedEx Camry. Definitely, I was happy with the performance we had today, really all around. Just in the Round of 8 you can’t have one bad week. Unfortunately, a mechanical failure takes us from running really well to in the 30s. That’s it.”
Falling short of the title race ensures that Hamlin, who turns 43 next month, will remain the driver with the most career wins (51) without a championship
“Man, I just want to get ready and go try to win next week,” he said. “I still love it so much be’cause every week I feel like I got a shot to win. That’s what fuels my passion, even at my age, to keep doing this, is I’m with the team that I got that gives me such fast cars every week and gives me a chance to continue to pile on those stats before the end of my career.
“It’s not over by any means. We got a long way to go. Really happy about the year in general. I thought substantially faster this year at all racetracks than what we were last year.”
Byron hung on for 13th despite suffering from unseasonably warm temperatures and a broken helmet fan (“blowing like a hair dryer”) inside his No. 24 Chevrolet on the 0.526-mile oval.
“Obviously we were not very good,” Byron told NBC Sports’ Marty Snider. “Our worst race of the year. These guys deserve it so much. They work so hard. Honestly, probably with 50 to go I felt really, really bad. I just had to drive the hell out of it. The guys stuck with me, they kept motivating me through little bits and pieces, just kind of keeping my mind straight.
“I’m just really thankful for them. It was just, yeah, a slugfest. Everyone raced me there good at the end. Congrats to Ryan. I was really happy for him. He was really fast. But, man, we just had to hang on. Just had to dig a little bit deeper.
“I knew when I got out of the car I was just beat. But the result means more than anything. These guys work so hard. We’ve worked so hard all season. I’m just really proud of them.”
Blaney and Byron will join Round of 8 winners Kyle Larson (Las Vegas) and Christopher Bell (Homestead-Miami Speedway) in the Nov. 5 championship showdown at Phoenix Raceway.
Martin Truex Jr., Tyler Reddick and Chris Buescher also were eliminated with Hamlin.