RELATED: Playoffs standings | Eight-car wreck erupts
LOUDON, N.H. — A major, jaw-dropping moment in the NASCAR Playoffs happened near the conclusion of Stage 2 of Sunday’s Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
Kevin Harvick and Austin Dillon made contact near Turn 2, causing billows of smoke to obstruct clear view of the track for the rest of the field, resulting in a major pileup. Several drivers were involved, including a handful of players in the NASCAR Playoffs.
Here’s the ripple effect of how drivers racing for the Monster Energy Series title were impacted from the wreck. All of the drivers below were involved in the incident except Ryan Newman, who benefited indirectly.
Martin Truex Jr., fifth place: Truex had the best rebound of any driver involved in the incident, driving his tail off in the Final Stage to cull together a top-five finish — and nearly a win, had his late two-tire strategy panned out. The Furniture Row Racing driver was already locked into the Round of 12, anyway, so he was the driver who could’ve afforded a hiccup the most … but that’s not how the No. 78 team rolls.
Denny Hamlin, 12th place: Hamlin’s No. 11 Toyota had a loose wheel shortly into the Final Stage, forcing his team to come down pit road for an unscheduled stop. It’s unclear if the issue was related to the wreck, but possible if not likely. Either way, a 12th-place finish for the Joe Gibbs Racing driver is much, much better than things could have been. He leaves Loudon a relatively safe fifth in the playoffs standings.
Ryan Newman, 13th place: The fickleness of the playoffs shines brightly here, as Newman placed 13th — like Hamlin, a solid rebound — but still sits 14th in terms of standings. It helped him that Kurt Busch took a tumble, but Newman was unable to capitalize with a better finish. As such, he’s a single point from the cutoff line, but another above-average run at Dover could be enough to move the No. 31 onto the next round.
Austin Dillon, 19th place: The wreck didn’t hurt Dillon tremendously in terms of his finishing position — he didn’t run higher than 13th or lower than 20th despite the snafu, keeping in line with his previous three finishes at NHMS of 13th, 16th and 15th place. It also didn’t help him. He’s a driver that competitors will be focusing on at Dover, as he heads to the ‘Monster Mile’ sitting right on the bubble with Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
Kevin Harvick, 36th place: For as bad as the wreck itself was, Harvick was able to sustain a poor finish like this and remain in good standing by virtue of the playoffs points he collected during the season and last week’s third-place finish. The 2014 champion is 25 points above the cutoff line, and as long as he can avoid another subpar 37th-place finish like he endured at last year’s fall Dover race, there’s a better-than-not chance he’ll slide through to the next round.
Kurt Busch, 37th place: The impact for the Daytona 500 winner was massive. There isn’t much worse luck than being obstructed and plowing head-first into your teammate, but the situation is more difficult for Busch than Harvick. The veteran leaves New Hampshire second-to-last in the playoffs standings, but the cutoff line is within sight: he’s 17 points behind Stenhouse/Dillon for the final spot. That said — drivers ahead of him in the standings can afford to race a little more cautiously than he’ll have to, so Busch finds himself in a bit of a win-or-bust scenario next week at Dover.