On Sunday, Sept. 7, St. Louis hosted the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs Round of 16 at the World Wide Tech Raceway located in Madison, Illinois. While the race takes place across the river, it is regularly considered a St. Louis track. The 33 cars lined up to a sold-out crowd on Sunday afternoon, following an extremely close Saturday Qualifying, with Joe Gibbs Racing’s Denny Hamlin lining up first for the second time in two weeks, beating Hendrick Motorsports’ Kyle Larson by just two hundredths of a second.
St. Louis’ track is part of the Round of 16, where the top 16 drivers from the season have just three tracks to score points, with the four lowest scoring drivers being eliminated and the remaining moving on to the Round of 12. A win at St. Louis would automatically guarantee a promotion to the next round, so each car would be hungry to take home the trophy.
The pressure was on Sunday morning, with Larson and Hamlin lining up side-by-side, each hoping to overtake the other, both on track and in the play-off standings. Behind Hamlin was his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate, Chase Briscoe, both vying for the playoff championship. Widely regarded as “the greatest to never get it,” Hamlin had a strong will to win the race Sunday and to claim his first ever NASCAR Cup Championship this year.
After a starting announcement from Academy Award-nominated actor Bill Murray, the drivers pushed off and began the 240 lap race in close positions, with little room for overtaking from the start. Featuring inconsistent curbs, it can be difficult for drivers to overtake an opponent at World Wide Tech Raceway without reaching unsafe speeds.
It didn’t take long for a racing incident to occur, however, with Chevrolet driver Kyle Busch spinning out on Lap 27, narrowly managing to keep his car on track. This initiated a pit-stop chain for the leading cars, where Hamlin was able to regain his lead position by staying out while Larson went in to change tires.
Following the restart, another incident took place with Wood Brothers Racing driver Josh Berry, who was hit in the rear by Chase Elliot, spinning out and being forced to retire on lap 36. Following a safety car procedure, Hamlin’s teammate Briscoe took the lead, eventually winning stage 1.
Stage 2 proceeded rather smoothly until a contact between Briscoe and Daniel Suarez, seeing the latter retire and force a restart. The restart at lap 61 and another at lap 76 saw Bubba Wallace take and maintain the lead for a majority of the stage, winning Stage 2 at lap 140.
Driver battles continued throughout the remaining 100 laps of the race, with Larson and Hamlin both vying for the lead, until a car issue saw Larson return to the pits with only 75 laps remaining, forcing him down the order and far behind Hamlin.
After a final restart at lap 216, Hamlin was able to complete the race with a decent margin of 1.6 seconds ahead of his teammate Briscoe. With both Joe Gibbs drivers now holding a Playoff win under their belt, the team feels confident going into the last race of the Round of 16. The win was also the 59th for Hamlin and 200th for manufacturer Toyota, making historic records at World Wide Tech Raceway.
Despite a strong race, Hamlin was met with booing from the sold-out audience, to which he replied “You either get on the bandwagon, or get over it.”
Following the race, Berry, Shane van Geisbergen, Alex Bowman and Austin Dillon sit in the cut-off zone, with only one more race to potentially make their way back to championship contention. This, however, seems unlikely for Berry, who suffered his second last-place finish in Sunday’s race.
NASCAR racing is set to return September 13th, with the next race taking place at historic Bristol Motor Speedway in Tennessee. While Hamlin currently leads the playoff standings, it is still any driver’s race, with even a single race holding the possibility of changing the lineups dramatically.