Chase Elliott was ready for the worst in final laps of first 2020 win: Thought ‘I was going to crash’

After a devastating week, Chase Elliott finally won.

After back-to-back NASCAR Cup Series races ended in heartbreak for Chase Elliott, the No. 9 Chevrolet driver finally drove to (an empty) Victory Lane for the first time in the 2020 season.

Elliott won the Alsco Uniforms 500 at Charlotte Motor Speedway on Thursday night, and he’s now automatically qualified for the 16-driver, 10-race playoffs in the fall. It was the reigning most popular driver’s seventh career Cup win, and while it’s technically his first checkered flag on Charlotte’s 1.5-mile oval, his most recent race win was in the 2019 playoffs at the venue’s half-oval, half-road course (or “roval”) track.

Denny Hamlin finished second and was followed by Ryan Blaney, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Kurt Busch to round out the top-5 drivers.

During his on-track interview after the race, Elliott told FOX Sports what was going through his mind in those final five laps with Hamlin and Blaney distantly on his tail.

He said:

“I was just waiting for the caution to come out, to be honest with you. I thought either the caution was going to come out, I was going to break something or I was going to crash. Just after the last couple of weeks, I just [thought] surely it wasn’t going to go green until the end. Just glad it did, and glad we’re hopefully back on the right path.”

That’s fair after the way Elliott’s last couple Cup Series races have gone, even if he has been leading Hendrick Motorsports’ strong performances, particularly since the season resumed May 17 after a 10-week hiatus because of the global coronavirus pandemic.

Two weeks ago at Darlington Raceway, the 24-year-old Hendrick Motorsports driver was in contention to win late in the race when unintentionally Kyle Busch made contact with him from behind, and the No. 9 car went spinning.

Elliott was understandably furious, but his recent troubles didn’t stop there. In Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600, he had the lead with just two laps to go when a caution flag and trip to pit road essentially ended his hopes of winning.

And although he won the NASCAR Truck Series race Tuesday — and won the $100,000 bounty put on Busch in the third-tier series — that’s not the same as Cup obviously.

Elliott continued:

“We’ve had some tough losses, but that deal on Sunday night was a heartbreaker. So it’s not the Coca-Cola 600, but any win in the Cup Series is really hard to get. And I really appreciate everybody at Hendrick Motorsports across the street here, and Chevrolet and everybody at the shop’s been working really hard. …

“I appreciate my team. [Crew chief] Alan [Gustafson] made a great call there at the end to get it tuned up and, luckily, the run went long, and I think that fell in our favor.”

After two races at Darlington and two at Charlotte, NASCAR’s opening installment in its return to racing amid the COVID-19 crisis is officially over. Kicking off the second installment of five more Cup races is a trip to Bristol Motor Speedway on Sunday (3:30 p.m. ET, FS1).

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