There was much anticipation coming into the Last Race to Make the Chase at Richmond International Raceway on Saturday night. Even though there was a record 14 drivers that had a mathematical possibility of obtaining one of the two Wild Card slots, there was little optimism that they could realistically be obtained by more than a handful.

At least that was the thinking process before the Wonderful Pistachios 400 began. With 16 cars involved in accidents in the first 28 laps, many of them Chase contenders, long shot mathematics and reality seemed to be on a collision course as well.

Only 13 of the field of 46 cars finished the race unscathed.

Though seated in a the final wild card slot coming into Richmond, Denny Hamlin needed a good finish at one of his best tracks in order to secure his slot. Despite starting 28th, Hamlin has never out of a race at RIR.

But Hamlin was one of 13 drivers involved in a turn 4 accident on the eighth lap of the race, damaging his front end and losing his left front tire. He was then was penalized for pitting before pit road was open.

“That was not what I planned on,” Hamlin said. “I mean we thought we were going to have a good car.”

Hamlin’s crew battled through 18 pits stops to climb as high as 6th before finishing 9th to lock up the final spot in the Chase field, a feat that even surprised Hamlin.

“This car is absolutely destroyed,” Hamlin said. “Any other race track we would be down 20 laps, but (the crew) just worked on it. Got it off the track and the splitter is broke off, the hood is broke and it’s just a mess and somehow we salvaged it.

“We had to add an inch of packers to the right front to get it ff the ground.

“My car is just—it is in bad, bad shape and somehow it ran as good as it did,” he said. “It was nerve wracking because every person that could win and then knock us out was running up front all day long and it was just like, you know, if it wasn’t one guy it was another. One of them was always a threat to win throughout the entire day.”

One of those drivers was Clint Bowyer, who caused the wreck which swallowed Hamlin but the damage to Bowyer’s car actually made it faster. Bowyer ran in the top 10 for 150 laps before eventually fading to a 22nd place finish.

David Ragan was another driver in the position of needing to win and he once again had a strong run at Richmond to finish fourth.

Dale Earnhardt would have been eliminated from the Chase with a bad finish and got caught up in a wreck on lap 8, then again on lap 37, then one more time on lap 153. He was also penalized for pitting too early, which was one of an incredible 18 pit stops on the night for the #88 team.

“I could drive good for about 10 laps until the tires would go away,” Earnhardt said.

He also took advantage of staying in Chase contention by being awarded the Lucky Dog three times.

“We got lucky, got the Lucky Dog a bunch and ended up finishing 15th somehow,” Earnhardt said.

Brad Keselowski could have bumped Earnhardt from the top 10 with a win and rose as high as second with 80 laps to go but faded down the stretch 12th. 

Tony Stewart needed to finish 18th or better to assure his spot in the Chase and was one of the few drivers to go untouched with a 7th place finish.

With so many Chase possibilities, in the end nothing really changed. The 12 drivers projected to make the Chase coming into Richmond were the 12 drivers who entered the championship after all was said and done in the Wonderful Pistachios 400.

With so much excitement building over all of the wild card possibilities coming into Richmond, in the end the top 12 drivers in points were the 12 drivers to make the Chase.

The only changes on the night were where the 12 drivers sat after all the points for wins were calculated. Kyle Busch and Kevin Harvick will enter the Chase atop the field with 2012 points. Jeff Gordon is third with 2009 points and Matt Kenseth fourth at 2006. Carl Edwards, Jimmie Johnson, Kurt Busch and Ryan Newman fill out the five through eight slots with 2003 points each while Stewart, Earnhardt, Keselowski and Hamlin round out the field with 2000 points each.