Kyle Petty and the rest of the NASCAR world was shocked at the performance of Martin Truex Jr. and Denny Hamlin over the weekend at Watkins Glen.

Both veteran Joe Gibbs Racing wheelmen needed a good finish to give themselves a chance to advance to the Round of 12, and it wasn’t meant to be, as Truex Jr. and Hamlin were caught up in accidents throughout the afternoon. Now, Hamlin is six points below the cut-line, while Truex Jr. is -14.

In his evaluation of the race, Petty tried to make sense of what Truex Jr. and Hamlin went through, and where each wheelman goes from here.

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“Watkins Glen, once again, never disappoints. We saw Martin Truex qualify well, run up front, gain some points, but in the end, it was for naught. He gets caught up in somebody else’s stuff. It’s always somebody else’s stuff that Martin Truex gets caught up in.,” Petty said. “We saw Ryan Blaney, first lap, he’s out of the race. That’s going to be a little bit of a controversy until NASCAR cleans that rule up a little bit.

“But the great Denny Hamlin, we saw him, once again, get in an accident and fall. What we have here are two guys, two guys below the cut line, Martin Truex and Denny Hamlin, that we thought would be in the top five or six.”

It’s certainly a shock to see Truex Jr. and Hamlin struggle throughout the last couple of weeks, while other less experienced drivers, such as Austin Cindric and their teammate Ty Gibbs, are currently above the cut-line.

One positive is that Bristol is a good track for both drivers, so they’ll have a shot at advancing to the Round of 12. During the latest episode of his Actions Detrimental podcast, Hamlin actually laid out his plan for moving on to the Round of 12 in Tennessee, as he’s been phenomenal at Bristol.

“We went from thinking we were going to have to win to, ‘Oh, we’ve just got to be ourselves,’ right, and do what we normally do at Bristol. So, that’s why I think the mood switched so quickly between, probably, 15 laps to go, in the Watkins Glen race, to the finish is all,” Hamlin explained. “All that happened in between that, I probably gained 13, 14 points. I went from being like, -20 to -6. Like, -6 ain’t nothing. At that point (being -20), like, you’re going to need to really run well, and then have multiple drivers with issues, which is just less likely. Now, we can just go there and run well and get in. 

“… Qualifying will be important, certainly, but I think — I don’t know, just run top five all stages, finish top five in the race, get a 47 point day or so, that’ll be plenty. But I’m planning on going there and winning.”

Kyle Petty recognizes Martin Truex Jr. and Denny Hamlin were caught up in some turmoil over the weekend, but they have one more chance to advance in the playoffs at Bristol this weekend. We’ll see if the veteran wheelmen can get the job done at The Last Great Coliseum.

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