Buescher on verge of claiming improbable berth in the Chase

Between the four Joe Gibbs Racing drivers and Truex, who drives for the affiliated Furniture Row Racing team, Toyotas won 13 of the 26 regular-season races and led more than half of all laps.

Denny Hamlin celebrates after winning the NASCAR Sprint Cup auto race at Richmond International Raceway in Richmond, Va., Saturday, Sept. 10, 2016. Newman referenced Stewart’s 2014 accident during a Sprint Car race at Canandaigua Motorsports Park in upstate NY that resulted in the death of fellow driver Kevin Ward Jr.

Competing NASCAR Sprint Cup teams were allowed 10 sets of Goodyears before the race got underway.

The rest of the Chase field is made up of the other 12 race winners this season.

Rookies Chase Elliott of Hendrick Motorsports and Chris Buescher both weathered some tense moments to qualify for NASCAR’s 10-race playoff.

Kyle Busch put on a dominating show in the NASCAR Xfinity Series Virginia529 College Savings 250 at Richmond International Raceway to score the race win at the 0.75-mile track. “We can’t go out and just try to run every lap and stay out of everyone’s way”.

With four wins this season, Kyle Busch earned the top seed on the Chase grid followed by Keselowski, Hamlin, Harvick, Edwards, Truex, Kenseth, Johnson, Logano – and Larson, who makes his first Chase appearance. How many times does a guy get a free pass until you’ve had enough of it? “I said if we won the race, we’d go to a 9”. “You’ll see all kinds of things he’s done. I got into him after that, but he had already chopped into me and messed up my line”, Newman exclaimed.

“We were second and third so many times it was insane”, Hamlin said about his consistently good qualifying but inability to win a pole. “If we don’t leave here tonight with the mentality of “We can make it to Homestead” then we might as well let the guy behind us in the Chase”.

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“I guess he thought he was in a sprint auto again and didn’t know how to control his anger”, Newman said.

Newman was fighting for position on the low line and bumped Stewart.

Ryan Blaney, who had an outside shot of making the Chase, saw his chances disappear just 11 laps into the race when he smacked the wall from a flat tire after making contact with Trevor Bayne.

Asked what happened, Newman said he “got Tony Stewarted”. During that time he has scored two poles, two top five finishes and four top ten finishes and led 119 laps. But for pole-sitter Denny Hamlin, it was a whole different type of feeling.

Truex was the leader at the halfway point of the race, and Toyota held the top three spots at that point, with Matt Kenseth running second and Hamlin third.

“I would say I feel pretty confident in our cars”, winning crew chief Mike Wheeler said afterward.

“He’s got to do his part, too, to race for a championship”, Stewart said. It’s what McMurray needed to get into the Chase for a second straight year and join teammate Larson on The Chase Grid. I don’t think there is a favorite right now. “It’s just disappointing that you’ve got somebody old like that’s retiring – should be retired the way he drives”.

Hamlin led 189 of the 407 laps, while 16 cautions ate up 89 laps.