NASCAR Playoff: Chase Elliott spins, Christopher Bell wins, 8's not enough for Kyle Larson

You gotta be there at the end

’Cause the fastest car won’t always win

In his “Awesome” days, folks would sometimes ask Bill Elliott what it’d take to win a particular race. His answer never wavered: “You gotta be there at the end.”

(Trust me, it’s more fun if you do it in Bill’s voice.)

Christopher Bell confirmed that old truth Sunday at the Charlotte Roval, where he took a 10th-place car — give or take — but gave it fresher tires than the others and got to the end before everyone else. 

Without that win, his playoff life would’ve been snuffed, but now he moves on with championship hopes alive, along with seven others but without the reigning champ.

And all I know is, if NASCAR had a full season of nothing but road courses, Chase Elliott and AJ Allmendinger would be the Petty and Pearson of that series. And Tyler Reddick would be their Bobby Allison.

Let’s roll . . .

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First Gear: Chase Elliott was cruising at Roval, but it couldn't last

For 103 laps, things were quite routine. Too routine, of course. You know how it goes.

Just as everyone was marveling at the green-flag run, as it reached 30 laps, then 40 . . . 45 . . . veteran onlookers had to know what was coming.

First came an old friend: Debris on the track, followed by the yellow flag dusted off an unfurled.

Remember, Bell was mathematically eliminated from the playoffs following this race, so nothing but a win would do him any good. So with literally nothing to lose, he came in for four tires while the others skipped new rubber and/or pit stops entirely. He restarted 18th when another old friend finally awoke: Chaos.

On the restart, Allmendinger muscled past Elliott to take the lead, but just as he might’ve been exhaling, he was rooted off the point by Kevin Harvick, who was likely still running on tilt after the week he’d had (remember that massive penalty his team took after NASCAR’s R&D findings).

That’s it, right? Harvick would motor on to victory and we’d have a very interesting post-race interview. Right?

Of course not.

Second Gear: Bell gets fresh shoes, runs past Kevin Harvick at Charlotte

Just as Harvick was taking the lead, Elliott was trying to regain his momentum when he was sent off into a series of whirly-birds in the grass. He’d lead the most laps (30), as he often does at a road course, but would finish 20th, because that can also happen to the fastest car and driver.

He will, however, take a 20-point lead into the Round of 8.

Bell had passed everyone but Reddick and Harvick with the laps trickling away. Then he passed Reddick and another yellow was flown due to a piece of curbing coming loose from a turn and getting nudged into the racing lane.

One final overtime restart for the green, white and checkers, and Harvick had nothing for the freshly shod No. 20 Chevy of Bell. Afterward, Bell seemed to be mixing in both gratitude (crew chief Adam Stevens’ call for fresh tires) and disbelief.

“Man, you’ve just got to be there at the end of these things,” he said. “I keep watching all these races where the fastest car doesn't always win. No secret that road courses have not been our strength this year.

“We were just there at the right time. We obviously weren't in position to win. We rolled the dice, gambled, and it paid off for us.”

For some others, not so much.

Third Gear: Kyle Larson won't go back-to-back with NASCAR championship

Here’s your eight remaining championship contenders heading into the next three-race round, beginning with Las Vegas this coming weekend: 1. Chase Elliott, 2. Joey Logano, 3. Ross Chastain, 4. Christopher Bell, 5. Ryan Blaney, 6. William Byron, 7. Denny Hamlin, 8. Chase Briscoe.

Notice who’s missing?

If you kept an eye on the Vegas odds boards, a whole lot of trust kept sticking to 2021 Cup champ Kyle Larson, though it was clear all year he didn’t have the goods he had during his amazing playoff run of a year ago. He entered Charlotte in decent shape in terms of making the cut for the Round of 8, but all it takes is one stub of the toe.

Contact with the wall did just enough damage — a broken toe link on the right-rear — to bring Kyle in for lengthy pit stop as his crew worked feverishly to get him back on track, which they did, but not before losing five laps and, in the end, a hold on the top eight of the standings.

Larson went with gallantry and threw himself on his sword.

“I just made way too many mistakes all year long,” he began. “Made another one today and it ultimately cost us a chance to go chase another championship. Just extremely mad at myself because I let the team down a number of times this year and let them down in a big way today.”

Fourth Gear: Jeff Gordon joins team execs in pressuring NASCAR

Something else happened over the Charlotte weekend and could have much longer lasting impact than anything that happened in Sunday’s race.

Two somethings, actually.

First, the Race Team Alliance went public with some laundry. Not sure it’s dirty laundry, at least not yet, but it sure isn’t sparkling. The RTA is an organization of 14 upper-tier NASCAR teams, formed in 2014 to give the teams a stronger voice in all things NASCAR.

With new contract talks between NASCAR and the TV networks in the on-deck circle, the RTA wants to reconfigure the longtime split of TV revenue: 65% to the tracks, 25% to the teams, 10% to NASCAR’s home office.

The teams are tired of spending every waking hour scrambling for sponsorship money, and feel a friendlier TV split would bring great relief (remember, we’re talking billions, not millions, in network revenue). Apparently, backroom talks weren’t going well, so the RTA has gone public.

A sub-committee of four RTA members — including Hendrick Motorsports vice chairman Jeff Gordon —  met with the media at Charlotte to explain their position. NASCAR responded with an official comment that began with, “NASCAR acknowledges the challenges currently facing race teams,” and ended with, “we will accomplish that together.”

It’s the in-between stuff that gets muddy, you know.

Also, NASCAR announced they’d immediately begin having weekly meetings with drivers regarding the current unrest on the safety front. That’s obviously in response to a growing wave of driver criticism about the Next Gen car.

Nothing stays the same, they say, and it’s becoming more and more evident that this ain’t even close to Big Bill’s NASCAR anymore.

— Reach ken willis at ken.willis@news-jrnl.com

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: NASCAR: Christopher Bell wins, Chase Elliott leads, Kyle Larson departs