NASCAR at Martinsville 2021 Results: Alex Bowman Wins; Championship 4 Set

Alex Bowman is going to have mixed feelings about Sunday.

On one hand, he won the Xfinity 500 at the Martinsville Speedway, the final race to qualify for the Championship 4.

On the other hand, it wasn't enough to qualify him for the final round, as Kyle Larson, Chase Elliott, Denny Hamlin and Martin Truex Jr. will vie for the title.

Kyle Busch finished second, followed by Brad Keselowski, Truex and William Byron.

It was a bittersweet day for Hamlin as well, who took serious umbrage with Bowman spinning him out late in the race as the two battled for the lead. Sparks were flying afterward.

"He's just a hack. He's just an absolute hack," Hamlin said of Bowman after the race. "He gets his ass kicked by his teammates every week. He's just f--king terrible. He's just terrible. He sees one opportunity and he takes it. But obviously, he's got the fastest car every week and he runs 10th."

Bowman—who has four wins on the season to Hamlin's two—said after the race he wasn't trying to spin Hamlin out:

"I just got loose in. I got in too deep, knocked him out of the way and literally let him have the lead back. So for anybody that wants to think that I was trying to crash him, it obviously wasn't the case, considering I literally gave up the lead at Martinsville to give it back to him. He's been on the other side of that, he's crashed guys here for wins. I hate doing it. Obviously I don't want to crash somebody. I just got in, got loose underneath him and spun him out."

Larson was the only driver to come into Sunday with a Championship 4 locked. Elliott clinched his berth after winning the second stage at Martinsville, while a fourth-place finish was enough for Truex, and Hamlin's 24th-place finish didn't cost him too dearly.

But the story on the day was the drama between Bowman and Hamlin. Never a dull moment in NASCAR.