NASCAR at Martinsville takeaways: Denny Hamlin, Chase Elliott altercation gives NASCAR the playoff drama it wants

At what lengths will drivers go to win a race when a championship is on the line? Such a question has been soundly answered numerous times since NASCAR instituted the multi-round elimination playoff format prior to the 2014 season.

The latest example occurred when Denny Hamlin plowed into leader Chase Elliott during the waning laps of Sunday’s semifinal playoff race at Martinsville Speedway. So egregious the act, Hamlin after initially downplaying what he did had little choice but to post a mea culpa on Twitter explaining that he crossed the line and apologized to Elliott for his actions.

A classy gesture, though Elliott’s fans are not likely to forgive Hamlin. Spinning arguably NASCAR’s second-most popular driver and preventing him from scoring his first-career win, a victory that would’ve qualified him for the championship finale, is not something Hamlin will live down anytime soon.

But while it was noble of Hamlin to apologize, he shouldn’t feel as if he acted in the wrong. What he was doing was trying to win by any means necessary, exactly as NASCAR intended when it created a playoff where a single win carries great significance.

No longer is season-long excellence the path to winning the championship. Nowadays, it is winning above all else and doing whatever it takes to reach victory lane. Because that win is often the difference between a championship and being knocked out of the playoffs. If that means laying a bumper on a competitor, well so be it. The Cup Series playoffs have evolved (or devolved) into every-one-for-themselves, sportsmanship be damned.

NASCAR wanted ruthless aggression where drivers would be incentivized to do just about anything when a win was at a stake. These memorable moments would then be replayed in a near endless loop to promote the sport.

Mission accomplished. In spades. Be it Jeff Gordon and Brad Keselowski clashing on the track, then on pit road in 2014, the Joey Logano-Matt Kenseth brouhaha the following year, or Hamlin deciding to turn the finish to Sunday’s race into something out of a video game.

If you want to be mad that the code of ethics in NASCAR is now blurred, then the fault lies with the sanctioning body. NASCAR created this format because it wanted “Game 7 moments,” the mantra NASCAR CEO and chairman Brian France has recited numerous times in why it crowns its champion in such a cutthroat manner.

And there is no denying what transpired Sunday will generate attention. Hamlin’s devious act and his subsequent heated verbal exchange with Elliott will be replayed on morning news shows, creating some much needed buzz that until Sunday had been a rather tepid playoff.

Hamlin is now cast into the role of NASCAR’s chief villain; Elliott the plucky upstart whose ascension was stymied by underhanded tactics. The boos that rained down upon Hamlin as he stood on pit road doing media interviews post-race was the kind of emotion NASCAR has sorely lacked. Fans were energized, so were drivers. A beaming Dale Earnhardt Jr. said on Periscope, “That’s what NASCAR needs every week.”

There is, however, an unseemly underbelly to all this.

Long term it’s fair to question if NASCAR is really benefitting from having a postseason format that’s akin to something devised by the WWE. Television ratings and attendance didn’t spike in the aftermath of the aforementioned highly publicized incidents. Nor is neither metric likely to see a significant boost from what occurred at Martinsville.

Instead Hamlin deliberately crashing Elliott and the resulting fallout offers additional evidence that NASCAR is approaching the threshold of fairness, which when crossed will then bring scrutiny on the legitimacy of its championship format.

That juncture may not have been Sunday, though it’s certainly getting closer.

Elliott has long been heralded as future Cup Series champion, hype the 21-year-old son of NASCAR Hall of Famer Bill Elliott has proven he’s worthy of such high praise. But if there is a knock on the younger Elliott it’s whether he possesses temerity to excel in this anything-goes era.

When push came to shove, would Elliott shove a veteran out of the way in a late-race situation if a win depended on it? On Sunday, he twice demonstrated that he was willing to go toe-to-toe with an established star.

With Brad Keselowski leading on a restart and Elliott second on a restart with four laps remaining, Elliott showed he was willing to muscle when so required. He first door-slammed Keselowski to wrestle away the lead, then when Hamlin plowed into him Elliott didn’t let the dirty deed go without strongly expressing his displeasure.

In the grand scheme, maybe it’s not much. But Elliott standing up for himself will earn respect among his peers, who now understand the prodigy can only be pushed for so before he’s willing to push back.

Of course, Elliott’s willingness to use physicality to win precludes him from taking personal what Hamlin later did to him. The only difference between the two incidents was that Elliott crashed into the outside wall, while Keselowski was able to continue on after Elliot tagged the No 2 Ford.

Except the differing outcomes had more to with Keselowski masterfully being able to regain control after contact with Elliott — even though he could’ve just as easily spun. Both were blatant.

Martinsville was supposed to be where Jimmie Johnson made his championship stand. The track where he frequently excels represented the ideal place to launch him into the title picture, maybe even repeat his feat of a year ago where he won to punch his ticket into the next bracket.

Except instead of leaving the Virginia short track well situated to win an eighth Cup Series championship, Johnson faces an uphill climb after finishing 12th on an afternoon where he wasn’t at his best, which began with a spin in qualifying necessitating he start the race at the rear of the field.

Although Johnson deserves praise for mustering a decent result considering the potentially disastrous circumstances, that he leaves Martinsville three points behind Kevin Harvick for the final provisional transfer spot is a bigger deficit than it otherwise appears to be. The No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports team is currently lacking speed on intermediate tracks like Texas Motor Speedway, site of next weekend’s race, and Johnson has largely struggled since Phoenix Raceway, the site of the semifinal round elimination race, underwent a reconfiguration.

Taking into account the Toyotas of Busch, Hamlin and Martin Truex Jr. are dominant on intermediate-sized speedways and Harvick is often superb at Phoenix — six wins in the past 10 races — Johnson will be hard-pressed to be among the four drivers making it out of this round either by virtue of his points ranking or by winning. He has just a single top-five finish over the last 21 races and the postseason switch everyone assumed the No. 48 team would flip is still affixed in the off position.

Maybe Johnson will surprise at Texas and Phoenix. After all, he’s made it a career of pulling off the seemingly impossible. More likely, his quest to win a record eighth Cup Series championship will have to be put on hold until 2018.