TALLADEGA, Ala. -- Jamie McMurray was a little bit of a prophet when he got knocked out of the Talladega Superspeedway race after 25 laps and was asked to sum up the impact of the race on his championship hopes.
"I'm sure I won't be the only playoff driver disappointed today." McMurray said.
Seven other playoff drivers found themselves in the garage before the checkered flag, but McMurray's 37th-place finish was still 10 spots worse than those he's battling to stave off elimination at Kansas.
Ryan Blaney (18th), Jimmie Johnson (24th), Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (26th) and Kyle Busch (27th) missed opportunities to put themselves in relatively safe positions going into the final race of the quarterfinal round of 12.
They're all battling for playoff spots at Kansas, where four drivers will be eliminated. Blaney has a nine-point edge on the ninth-place Busch, the current cutoff. Johnson has a seven-point edge on Busch. Those joining Busch currently on the outside looking in: Matt Kenseth (eight points behind Johnson), Stenhouse (22 points behind) and McMurray (29 points back).
Busch has finishes of 29th and 27th in the two playoff races this round, so his 41 playoff points keep him in contention but certainly are not a guarantee to advance out of the quarterfinal round.
"I don't know," Busch said. "We threw away a lot of it last week. If we would have finished last week normal, we would have been fine. ... We'll have to go to Kansas and run good in all the stages and have a good day there to try to make it through."
Blaney won a stage and finished third in another, earning 18 stage points at Talladega. And yet he will have to run well at Kansas to remain among the final eight playoff contenders.
"We had a shot to win the race, but you finish [around] 25th and you get 18 stage points it doesn't matter," a disappointed Blaney said.
Johnson was particularly miffed that he was parked after the Lap 172 accident and the ensuing red flag. NASCAR determined his team did work on his car before the red flag was lifted.
"Us and a couple of other cars were on pit road and our guys started working on the car and I guess it was too soon," Johnson said. "It was some miscommunication somewhere and hopefully we can get that rectified. There were a lot of cars that we passed on pit road that are points for us."
It was a miscommunication. Johnson's spotter heard NASCAR tell the drivers to start their engines, and so he told his team to get to work on the car, according to NASCAR. But the red flag is not lifted until the drivers actually start moving, so the team was found to have worked on the car during the red flag -- which meant that he was parked because his car was under the five-minute clock.
Johnson was scored like all the other cars that couldn't continue after the wreck -- by position of the last completed lap.
"Those points are so valuable," Johnson said in unsuccessful lobbying for a ruling that he be credited with finishing ahead of any car that was stopped on the track and couldn't continue.
It was one of those days where misery appeared to love company.
"We know you can come out of here [at Talladega] with a lot of points and be a winner or you can be in the position we are right now," McMurray said. "We'll go to Kansas and do our best."
Xfinity Series: Looking ahead
The NASCAR Xfinity Series teams had a welcomed weekend off after the cutoff race at Charlotte, and some drivers racing there face a little uncertainty.
Daniel Hemric is missing his crew chief, car chief and top engineer for a weight falling off the car on pit road during practice at Dover. He finished seventh at Charlotte without them and faces running the entire semifinal round of eight with them serving out their four-race suspensions.
"As smooth as this weekend went with the limited practice we got, I felt like it was a really seamless transition," Hemric said. "Everybody was still involved back in the shop."
Sam Hornish Jr., who finished second at Charlotte, left there not knowing if he will drive for Team Penske again this year. He competed in a third car at Charlotte and seems as the natural pick for the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway. No full-time Cup driver can compete in that race, and Penske likely will have its No. 22 in championship contention for the owners title.
"They're keeping everything pretty tight even from me," Hornish said.
Camping World Truck Series: One long day
With Chase Briscoe nine laps down in 22nd in the waning laps at Talladega, John Hunter Nemechek knew he had to finish 13th or better to advance into the semifinal round of 6.
On the restart with two laps to go, he was 10th. Nemechek, whose truck had suffered damage in a wreck earlier in the race, was able to get through the last-lap accident to advance -- he joined Christopher Bell, Ben Rhodes, Johnny Sauter, Matt Crafton and Austin Cindric in surviving the first round. Briscoe and Kaz Grala were eliminated.
"We accomplished everything we wanted to except winning the race," Nemechek said. "They started spinning and luckily [my spotter] goes, 'Go low, go low, go low, clear one lane up' and we missed it.
"It definitely was awesome to miss that wreck."
There is nothing safe to do at Talladega.
"I was following the 88 [of Matt Crafton] and we got in one wreck," Nemechek said. "It was really lead, follow and try to avoid the wrecks."
Cindric was the other driver who didn't know he would advance until the final lap. He was fifth.
"The people that we were fighting against had troubles and we got some stage points and got a nice margin and, really, we were able to ride there for the last nine or so laps and then decided there was nothing to lose at that point and tried to make something of it and ended up [fifth]," Cindric said.