With two laps to go in the regularly-scheduled distance at Nashville Superspeedway, Denny Hamlin led the way with Ross Chastain, Kyle Larson, Kyle Busch and Ty Gibbs rounding out the top five.
Over 30 laps later, after the most overtimes in NASCAR Cup Series history, not a single one of those contenders finished there.
So it went during the final stage of the Ally 400, a mediocre race turned into a melee when the day's dominant driver, Christopher Bell, wrecked on Lap 227. The final would-be 70 laps were a flurry of different pit strategies as several drivers tried to squeeze out the rest of the race on old tires and an empty gas tank.
It all appeared to work out for Hamlin, who passed Chastain for the lead inside the final 10 regularly scheduled laps.
But then Austin Cindric spun on the backstretch, forcing overtime. And then came another one. And another one.
By the time all was said and done, a record-setting five overtimes descended on a chaotic Nashville finish that saw contenders run out of gas, spin out or simply slip up during a series of wild restarts.
First came the fuel problems, downing contenders like Hamlin, Larson, and Martin Truex Jr., among others. Multiple overtimes were too much for so many drivers trying to stretch their tank.
"We ran out under caution," Hamlin explained, having to pit in between an OT restart. "It was the right call. I was going down pit lane there out of gas."
It's much better than running out on the racetrack. That's what happened to Larson, sparking a wreck that took out Kyle Busch. One of Busch's signature bows upon exiting the car signified how frustrated drivers and fans started to feel.
"Just a lot of craziness there at the end," said Larson, who somehow recovered to finish eighth. "There were a lot of cars short on fuel and we were one of them. Just a lot of mess."
Emerging from the scrap heap of it all was Joey Logano, who sat 14th when the Cindric caution came out. Somehow, when all the other gamblers ran out of gas, Logano found himself up front, tasked with running some 110 laps (nearly 150 miles) to the finish without pitting.
"We didn't feel comfortable," Logano said. "But you go for it, and it's pretty risky when you think about where we were in the playoff grid. You really can't afford to have a bad [finish], but gosh, it's really hard to pit when you're in the lead and you're in position to win the race."
That's exactly what the two-time Cup champion did, staying out with his fuel light finally coming on during Turn 3 of the fifth and final overtime.
"It stumbled and stumbled," Logano explained, "and then it kind of got like a quick little bit of gas, I guess, and it kind of gave me a little squirt and then started stumbling again across the line."
That last burst was just enough for Logano to hold off surprising rookie Zane Smith, hard-charging Tyler Reddick and others to produce one of the season's most unexpected victories some 31 laps past the scheduled distance.
But for a two-time Cup champion spending most of this year in an unexpected slump? He'll take that playoff clincher any way he could get it.
"That pressure is real," Logano said with a sigh of relief. "And you don't sleep good. You're constantly thinking about it. It's nice to be able to get this win to where you can take the next seven weeks to be able to sleep a little bit and start thinking about the playoffs."
Traffic Report
Green: Team Penske. Ford spent the first few months of this season winless. Now, in the course of the last five races, they've won three times, their top-tier Penske organization leading the way. Penske's the first multi-car team to put each of their drivers into the playoffs this season: defending champ Ryan Blaney, Cindric and now Logano.
Yellow: Zane Smith. An unexpected runner-up finish is a major boost to Smith and his underfunded Spire Motorsports program. It's his first top 15 since running 13th in the season-opening Daytona 500.
But that's also why running second can be viewed as a missed opportunity. Smith stealing a postseason spot with one more Logano burp on his fuel would have been one of the larger NASCAR upsets of all time. "My winning side of me is pissed with the second place," Smith said, "especially after hearing [Logano] was going to run out for the [last] 10 laps."
Red: Ross Chastain. A bad move by Larson on the first overtime restart sparked much of this mess, launching Chastain hard into the Turn 1 wall.
It's a reversal of sorts from Darlington last May, where Chastain hitting Larson sparked criticism that the Trackhouse Racing driver was too aggressive, leading to a more muted driver we see today. Here's the difference: Larson's move could cost Chastain, who's struggled to find consistent speed, a postseason bid.
Speeding Ticket: NASCAR Scoring. Somehow, after Chastain's wreck that saw Kyle Busch slow to a stop, scoring determined he should restart fourth for the next overtime. Busch was rewarded for not plowing into Chastain at full speed to maintain position, causing a bigger incident.
You can see what happened in the midst of this clip. But what NASCAR did also went against the organic flow of a race. Sometimes, bad luck happens: you run out of gas, have a tire blow or a wreck happen in front of you. Ironically, elevating Busch back to his position also led to his demise later on; Larson ran out of fuel directly in front of him just a few laps later.
Oops!
An overlooked incident in the race with all the overtimes came on Lap 245, when Carson Hocevar pushed and then spun Harrison Burton on the backstretch. The No. 77 Chevrolet charged up to the No. 21 Ford and slammed into the car until it spun, long after the caution came out.
Hocevar didn't stick around for comment after the race but Burton, who got eliminated in one of the OT wrecks later on, had plenty to say.
"He blocks everyone every week," Burton said, "and I blocked him once, and he decided to wreck me under yellow. I don't know, he's on a lot of people's lists as guys they don't like racing. It kind of shows you why."