CONCORD, N.C. — Christopher Bell saved his title chances with an overtime win Sunday on the road course at Charlotte Motor Speedway in a stunning finish that knocked reigning NASCAR champion Kyle Larson from the playoffs.

Bell entered the race 11th in the standings with four drivers set to be eliminated as NASCAR’s playoff field was trimmed from 12 to eight. He knew he had to win to avoid elimination but seemed to have little chance as Chase Elliott dominated the final stage.

But a race void of any cautions suddenly flipped with five laps to go when a sponsorship sign flew off the speedway wall and landed on the track.

At last, NASCAR called a caution and the entire playoff picture changed.

Bell got fresh tires during the caution period and began charging his way through the field when the race restarted with three laps to go.

Then came the chaos.

AJ Allmendinger, winner of the Xfinity Series race Saturday, passed Elliott for the lead. Then Kevin Harvick pushed Allmendinger off the track to take the lead, and Bell kept making up ground. Elliott was pushed off track by Tyler Reddick, and cars were spinning all through the field.

Another caution for a spin and a broken patch of curbing brought out yet another yellow and sent the race to overtime. Now Bell had a legitimate shot at the win.

He surged past Harvick in his Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota at the start of the two-lap overtime sprint and pulled away. All the action was deeper in the pack, where Chase Briscoe and Daytona 500 winner Austin Cindric were jockeying with Larson for the eighth and final playoff spot.

“Man, you’ve just got to be there at the end of these things. I keep watching all these races where the fastest car doesn’t always win,” Bell said. “We were just there at the right time. We obviously weren’t in position to win. We rolled the dice, gambled, it paid off for us.”

Larson, a 10-race winner last year and the most dominant driver in the country, was five laps down because he broke a part when he hit the wall earlier in the race in his Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet. There was little he could do but hope Briscoe and Cindric didn’t gain enough positions to bump him from the playoffs.

Cindric was spun in overtime, but Briscoe was relentless and got a boost from his Stewart-Haas Racing teammate Cole Custer, who used his Ford to hold up traffic and help Briscoe gain another spot and finish ninth.

“What a wild day. I told my guys before we took the initial green in the race, there’s a difference between thinking we could move on and knowing we could move on,” Briscoe said. “This team never gives up. I told them I was never going to give up. It took every bit of it there at the end.”

Larson finished 35th and was bumped from the playoff field by two points.

“I made way too many mistakes this whole year. You can’t win a championship like that,” said Larson, who has two wins this season. “No surprise that I made another mistake today and took us out of contention.”

Daniel Suarez, who had a power steering problem, was eliminated for Trackhouse Racing, as was Cindric of Team Penske and Alex Bowman, who on Sunday missed his second consecutive race with a concussion. Bowman and Larson’s elimination cut the Hendrick Motorsports title chances in half as only Elliott and William Byron advanced for the team that has won the last two Cup titles.

Advancing to the round of eight were Bell, Briscoe, Byron, Elliott, Denny Hamlin, Joey Logano, Ross Chastain and Ryan Blaney. Chastain hit the wall to damage his Chevrolet and put Trackhouse Racing in danger of losing both its cars in the playoffs on the day it celebrated its 100th Cup start.

Suarez and Chastain finished 36th and 37th, right behind Larson.

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