TALLADEGA, Ala. -- Last year, the ugly part of the Chase elimination-style format at Talladega came when Kevin Harvick stayed out with a sick car in the final laps, causing a wreck that ended the race.
This year, the ugly came in a different fashion: with Matt Kenseth finishing 28th, Carl Edwards in 29th and Kyle Busch in 30th -- good enough to advance to the semifinal round of the Chase for the Sprint Cup. The three Joe Gibbs Racing drivers never made much of a move, dropping to the rear of the field before the green flag ever fell and staying there throughout the day. There were only four cars on the lead lap behind them.
Kenseth finished with an eight-point cushion to advance, Busch finished with a six-point cushion and Edwards with a four-point spread.
"We accomplished all we need to accomplish," Busch said. "We'll take it and move on. We didn't get paid very well today, but we'll get paid very well in about four weeks when we're hoisting a trophy."
With a couple of engine failures taking out some contenders but no big wreck to thin the field, the Gibbs drivers opted to never make a real move throughout the race. There was a slight chance Austin Dillon and Denny Hamlin could have had such good finishes to knock out one of the Gibbs cars running around in the back, but they took their chances.
For Busch, the defending Sprint Cup champion, it was the best 30th-place finish ever.
"There is no reward to go race and get wrecked so you try to be smart and do what you can do," Busch said. "If you're guaranteed racing and everybody along with yourself is all crashed out, then the points would stay the same, [you'd race] but you can't guarantee that.
"You have to be smart and you have to try to survive."
Busch said he was hesitant to use the strategy, which was similar to what he tried in 2014 only to get hit from behind by Dillon as he slowed for an accident well up ahead of them.
"Anytime we were just kind of chilling, riding, kind of hanging out and we had a car behind us, I made sure to get out of that situation and made sure we were the last car," Busch said. "I didn't want anybody behind me besides a teammate."
The one driver who could have been hurt by strategy was their JGR teammate Hamlin, who had no one to rely on for a push up front. His third-place finish was good enough to tie Dillon for the final spot and win the tiebreaker with the best finish in the round. In other words, Hamlin advanced no thanks to his teammates.
"They had to do what they had to do to get in," Hamlin said. "You can't sacrifice those three cars to try to get the last one in. You've got to know you've got in your hand three aces. You can't try to get the fourth and risk it, so I knew I was going to be out there alone."
One thing fans can be sure of -- they won't see this next year. Because Talladega is the middle race of the round, no one will use the strategy because drivers will need to get every point they can prior to the elimination race at Kansas.
"Next year, it will be a way better race and I think we'll have way more entertainment for the fans and everyone, with the schedule change putting Talladega back before Kansas," Busch said. "You'll know what you have before you go into Kansas, so I feel like everyone is going to have to race and you're going to have to get as many points as you can through this track in order to have a safe day at Kansas."
That's good, because there hopefully won't be many more of these answers after the Talladega race next year.
"I don't think any of us had any fun and none of us enjoyed it," Kenseth said. "But it was just what we had to do."
Camping World Truck Series: Old and new
The truck championship hunt eliminated two young drivers in Daniel Hemric and John Hunter Nemechek, keeping a mix of veterans and newcomers in the mix.
Series vets Timothy Peters, Matt Crafton and Johnny Sauter are among the six drivers to advance to the semifinal round. Ben Kennedy, in his third year in trucks, advanced, as did Kyle Busch Motorsports rookies William Byron and Christopher Bell.
Byron was the only driver guaranteed a spot entering the race Saturday at Talladega, but the other five were ahead of the cutoff entering the race and held their positions as Nemechek blew an engine and Hemric got caught up in a couple melees. Grant Enfinger won the race driving for GMS Racing.
Peters hopes that experience matters.
"I look forward to the next three," Peters said. "I'm not worried about [the rest]. We're going to race our own race. ... I'm excited about going to Martinsville for sure. We'll take it how it comes."
Crafton and Sauter have two career wins at Martinsville, while Peters also has one. At Texas, Byron won in June, and Crafton and Sauter have two wins apiece. Peters is the defending winner at Phoenix.
"I felt like we had a truck that could win the race -- we definitely had enough speed," Sauter said. "But you've got to be smart. I feel great [about our chances].
"We've won at Martinsville a couple of times, we've won at Texas a couple of times. They're really good racetracks [for us]. We've just got to go there and be aggressive and ultimately race for points."