William Byron struggled all day long, but he clawed back to 13th and scored enough points to take the fourth and final spot in the championship race.
Two weeks ago, Ryan Blaney was told that he had been disqualified from an excellent finish in the first playoff race of the Round of Eight. If the result had held, he would have effectively needed to win one of the next two races to make his first-ever Championship Four and fight for his first NASCAR championship. The disqualification was overturned a day later, but Blaney went out and won one of those races anyway.
He scored huge points in both stages and briefly led Byron in the standings, but Byron was able to climb back out of the danger zone with an eventual modest finish of 13th and put pressure on Hamlin to catch and pass Blaney to win. Hamlin had a shot on the final stint, but Blaney moved better through a massive field of slower cars on older tires and held a five-second gap on his playoff rival throughout the closing laps of the race.
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