Martin Truex Jr. admitted that "I screwed it up" as a pitlane speeding penalty in Bristol's Round of 16 elimination race thwarted his hopes of progressing in the NASCAR Cup playoffs.
The 2017 Cup champion had been 14 points below the cut line coming into the race after disappointing results at Atlanta and Watkins Glen, but appeared to be doing everything he needed to do to advance into the Round of 12.
Having collected 16 stage points, the Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota driver was running second and stood a fighting chance until the final pitstop of the night with around 170 laps to go.
Although his team executed a perfect stop, Truex was caught speeding and sent to the rear of the field. He remained stuck outside of the top-20 for the remainder of the race and ultimately finished 24th, ending up 21 points below the cut-line.
Truex's playoff hopes were duly ended along with team-mate Ty Gibbs, Brad Keselowski (RFK Racing Ford) and Harrison Burton (Wood Brothers Ford).
"It's really tough when it's 0.09mph that kind of screws your whole chance at a good season up," said Truex, who will retire from Cup competition at the end of the season with Chase Briscoe taking his seat in 2025.
"I don't know how that happened. I didn't even know I was that close, honestly.
"I felt like I did the same thing as every other stop. Sometimes you're just a foot to the left - it's so tricky when you're going from that curved section to the straight.
"It's on me, obviously. My mistake.
"They said that we were going to have to run second or third there to have a chance and I don't know if we could have done it, but it would have been nice to see.
"Just really sad for my guys, they work so hard. We had a really strong car tonight.
"We got a lot of stage points, we did what we needed to there. Just hate I screwed it up.
"I wish we could have at least seen if we could have done it. Would have been fun to have a fighting chance."
The major beneficiary of Truex's misfortune was Daniel Suarez, who reached the Round of 12 despite a torrid run to finish 31st in his ill-handling Trackhouse Chevrolet.
He fell off the lead lap early and spent the majority of the race outside of the top-30. By the time the checkered flag flew, he was four laps behind but still had a reason to smile after edging out Gibbs to progress.
"It was a struggle," said Suarez, who had a 36-point cushion heading into the race.
"Since yesterday when we unloaded the car for first practice, we just didn't have the speed. As you know, with a short amount of practice, qualifying, and going to the race, if you don't have speed out of the trailer, it's very, very difficult to bring it back to speed.
"We made it better, but it wasn't good enough. We were running 30th, 28th, 32nd all night long, and that's what we had."
Gibbs got to within four points of Suarez, before burning up his tyres. In the closing laps, Gibbs lost several spots and fell to 15th in the final running order.
Joining Suarez in the Round of 12 field are dominant Bristol winner Kyle Larson, Christopher Bell, Tyler Reddick, William Byron, Ryan Blaney, Denny Hamlin, Chase Elliott, Joey Logano, Austin Cindric, Alex Bowman and Briscoe.
