Martinsville Speedway can bite at any second, and Joey Logano found the limit in Stage 2 on Sunday when a passing attempt turned into a multi-car mess. Logano nudged his nose inside of Christopher Bell entering Turn 1 on Lap 216. That single touch of machinery sent Bell and his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate, Denny Hamlin, spinning around in tandem.
It was a tight squeeze out there on the asphalt. Hamlin was running to the outside of the No. 20 machine, Logano dove down the inside to force a pass, and simply put, the three drivers ran clean out of real estate. Thankfully, both Hamlin and Bell managed to keep their machines rolling and continued on once the smoke cleared.
Before the chaos, both Hamlin and Bell had already endured their share of afternoon drama. Hamlin came into the Chase race presented by Mobil 1 sitting second in the points standings, but a strategy gamble to stay out for the entirety of Stage 1 left him tumbling outside the top 10 without a single stage point to show for it.
Bell had started his race a bit stronger by taking fourth in Stage 1. Unfortunately, his momentum hit a wall right after a Lap 219 caution—triggered by Carson Hocevar spinning in Turn 4—when Bell got caught speeding on pit road.
Meanwhile, points leader Kyle Larson had mirrored Hamlin's aggressive Stage 1 strategy and found himself a lap down as a result. But racing fortunes turn fast, and Larson inherited the free pass as a direct consequence of the caution called for the Bell and Hamlin spin.
