NASCAR takeaways: Kyle Larson dominates at Bristol; Martin Truex Jr. out of playoffs

Takeaways from Bristol:

Hamlin Champ Quest Continues

Denny Hamlin, arguably the most accomplished driver never to win a Cup title, entered the race Saturday six points below the playoff cutoff. He finished the night 15 points ahead thanks to a fourth-place finish and the second-most points earned (46) on the night.

“Making out of the first round I would never think to be a goal,” Hamlin said. “But certainly after the first two races [of the round], this feels good. But we expect a heck of a lot more than making it out of the first round.”

Hamlin isn’t concerned that having to sweat out the first round will impact him in the upcoming rounds. With the points reset, he is seven points above the new cutline entering the next round.

“For us, it’s take a breath here and now reset,” Hamlin said.

There’s Always Next Year (Except For Truex)

Gibbs entered the day six points above the cutline while Truex entered 12 points below — and both had strong cars. But they both sped on pit road and never recovered.

Truex got lapped after running in the top-five for much of the night prior to the penalty. He would have had to have won or finished second to have advanced.

“Once you get back there in the pack, it burns your tires off really quick,” Truex said. “I just couldn’t get up through there and my tires went away really fast and the leaders in clean air caught me quick. … You’ve got to keep track position and I lost all ours when I sped.”

He was 0.09 miles per hour above the NASCAR-mandated speed limit (for safety reasons) in a section on pit road.

“I was just trying to do the same thing every time [on pit road],” Truex said. “I’m just frustrated, upset and hate it for my guys. … I don’t know if we were quite good enough, but it would have been nice to find out at least and I hate I screwed it up.”

Gibbs also blamed himself for his speeding penalty. He had rallied to as high as eighth but his handling went away late and he finished 15th.

“The speeding penalty is on me,” Gibbs said. “We run under the lights [that signify RPM] so close, and I just got a little bit too much, I guess. My fault. Unfortunate.”

It was a disappointing night for Keselowski, who finished three laps down and never was a factor in rallying his way into the next round. He had planned for the tires to react much like the spring.

“We just didn’t have the pace — we were set up for the other tire I wish we had,” Keselowski said. “But we had what we had. We want to run better. We want to win races and make deep runs in the playoffs. Anything short of that is disappointing.”

Suarez Finishes 31st And Advances

Suarez had an awful day but with the speeding penalties to Truex and Gibbs, he was able to just nurse a slow car to the finish and advance.

It might have been the first time he celebrated after a 31st-place finish thanks to a 36-point cushion on the cutoff entering the race.

“It wasn’t pretty, obviously,” Suarez said. “We knew it was going to be a long night. We were the last car in practice. We qualified 31st and finished 31st. It’s not ideal. Luckily … we built a decent cushion.”

Suarez said he felt they ran the race they needed to run with a slow car.

“I was pushing when I had to push,” Suarez said. “All in all, we did a smart race. It wasn’t good. But it was smart.”