Tag: Chase Elliott

Elliott wins Clash at Bowman Gray

Pole winner Chase Elliott held off a dramatic charge from Ryan Blaney to win Sunday night’s Cook Out Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium in front of a teeming, vociferous sellout crowd at the historic quarter-mile. Adroitly working lapped traffic in the …

Pole winner Chase Elliott held off a dramatic charge from Ryan Blaney to win Sunday night’s Cook Out Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium in front of a teeming, vociferous sellout crowd at the historic quarter-mile.

Adroitly working lapped traffic in the closing stages of the 200-lap season-opening exhibition race, Elliott crossed the finish line 1.333s ahead of Blaney, who started last among the 23 competitors on a driver points provisional.

Elliott claimed his first victory in the Clash, which came to Bowman Gray after a three-year stint in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. The driver of the No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet reveled in the NASCAR Cup Series’ return to the iconic short track after an absence of 54 years.

“This environment is special,” said Elliott, who led 171 laps, including the first 96 before surrendering the lead to eventual third-place finisher Denny Hamlin. “This is a place that has a deep history in NASCAR. I think they deserve this event, truthfully.

“I hope we didn’t disappoint. It was fun for me at least, and we’ll hopefully come back here one day.”

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Hamlin led twice for 28 laps, but faded after Elliott retook the top spot from him on lap 126. And when Blaney slipped past Hamlin’s Toyota on lap 147, it became a two-driver race.

But Blaney’s car tightened up in the late going, preventing the driver of the No. 12 Team Penske Ford from challenging for the win. Blaney thought better of making an overly aggressive move on the series’ seven-time most popular driver.

“I’m not going to bulldog into him and get chased out of here with pitchforks,” Blaney quipped… “I just didn’t quite have enough right rear at the end to make a move on him.”

Joey Logano finished fourth, followed by Bubba Wallace, who advanced from his 14th-place starting position. Ross Chastain, Austin Cindric, Tyler Reddick, Shane van Gisbergen and Chris Buescher completed the top 10.

Hamlin rued the final restart on lap 121, after the seventh caution for Brad Keselowski’s spin off Wallace’s bumper.

“I just didn’t do very well on that restart there, and kind of lost the bottom, and Chase took advantage of it,” Hamlin said. “Once you get the lead, it’s a lot easier to hang on to it.

“I thought that they were just a little better that second half than we were, along with the 12 (Blaney) was as well. We just have to get a little bit better, but overall, a good day for our Sport Clips Toyota.”

In the last chance qualifier that determined positions 21 and 22 in the main event, Kyle Larson charged from the 10th starting position and survived nine cautions to win the 75-lap event and advance to the Clash.

On lap 72, Larson grabbed the lead from Josh Berry, who was making his first competitive start for Wood Brothers Racing at the track where team patriarch and NASCAR Hall of Famer Glen Wood secured all four of his Cup Series victories.

Larson took the top spot for the first time on lap 30 and led a race-high 36 circuits en route to the win. However, Larson’s No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet sustained damage after he surrendered the lead to Erik Jones for a restart on lap 65.

In a melee moments after racing resumed, Jones spun in a three-wide mishap with Berry and Larson and dropped out of contention.

“My car was way better than it was yesterday,” said Larson, whose eighth-place finish in his Saturday heat relegated him to the last chance qualifier. “That was fun. I was able to get to the front without really getting into too many people.

“But then after that long break (for local champion Burt Myers hard wreck on lap 61), I cycled really tight for that restart and allowed Erik to get in front of me and just kind of lost control of the race at that point. Then, the next restart, it got crazy, and I got a bunch of damage.”

Berry, who started 13th, held second to secure the 22nd spot in the Clash. Berry and Larson finished 13th and 17th, respectively, in the main event.

“It got pretty rough,” Berry said. “You hate that it comes to that, but it is what it is — it’s the Madhouse, it’s Bowman Gray Stadium, it’s a tight racetrack, and you’re going to run into each other.”

Elliott is the 26th different driver to win the Clash and the eighth different driver to win the event in the last eight years. He’s the first driver to win in a Chevrolet since Jimmie Johnson did so in 2019. This was the sixth time the Clash has been won from the pole position.

Elliott, Buescher to lead field to green for Clash at Bowman Gray

Chase Elliott and Chris Buescher earned the front row for the Cook Out Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium after leading wire-to-wire in their respective heat races. The four heat races determined the first 20 drivers locked into Sunday’s main event. All …

Chase Elliott and Chris Buescher earned the front row for the Cook Out Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium after leading wire-to-wire in their respective heat races.

The four heat races determined the first 20 drivers locked into Sunday’s main event. All others will fight for two remaining spots through the Last Chance Qualifying race. The 23rd and final spot will go to the highest driver from the 2024 championship standings who was not already locked into the Clash.

Elliott and Buescher won the first two heat races. Both started on the pole in their respective 25-lappers. The top five finishers in each heat race advanced into the Clash.

The first heat was the most aggressive, featuring three cautions after drivers utilized their bumpers. Elliott faced little challenge throughout.

Austin Dillon was the first caution after catching the apron and spinning by himself on lap three off Turn 2.

The second caution on lap six came when the pushing and shoving in the pack came to a head as Kyle Busch shoved Justin Haley, who went airborne as he ran over the left-rear quarter panel of Noah Gragson. Gragson spun, bringing out the yellow.

When the race restarted, it quickly went to caution again, this time for Josh Berry spinning in Turn 3. At the same time, Haley spun Busch. Under caution, Busch pushed Haley for multiple laps before getting a “final warning” from NASCAR to get off Haley’s bumper.

The top five finishers who advanced were Elliott, Brad Keselowski, Gragson, Busch, and Ross Chastain.

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“It’s going to be tough to win [Sunday night] from the third or fourth row,” Elliott said of track position at Bowman Gray. “I think the first couple of rows certainly have a massive advantage on the rest of the field. Obviously anything can happen. I’ve been doing this … long enough to know anything can happen. I’m well aware of that, but I think in a normal circumstance of people not totally crashing each other or whatever, yeah, I certainly would want to be on the first couple of rows, and fortunately we are.”

The second and third heat races were much tamer and caution-free. Buescher led Chase Briscoe, Shane van Gisbergen, Bubba Wallace, and Daniel Suarez to the finish.

Buescher makes the Clash for the first time under the current format. In the three years NASCAR visited Los Angeles for the exhibition race, he never advanced into the main event.

“A lot of things we learned about what not to do there, and we weren’t good any of the times we went,” Buescher said. “We steadily found some things that were a little bit better but ultimately needed a pretty big overhaul. I would say that [Ryan] Preece has been a pretty big mover for us on some of these flat short tracks. Some of the things that he’s done through the years that have worked well — last year they excelled at this style of race — [are] really beneficial to RFK as a whole.”

In the third heat, Denny Hamlin led Joey Logano, William Byron, Carson Hocevar, and Alex Bowman across the finish line to advance into the Clash. Hamlin led every lap.

Tyler Reddick started from the pole and led every lap in the fourth heat, with two cautions flying.

The first occurred on lap six when AJ Allmendinger ran Cole Custer into the wall off Turn 4. Custer hit the wall and Allmendinger’s right rear, which sent Allmendinger for a spin.

Lap seven saw another immediate yellow. Ryan Preece ran into the back of John Hunter Nemechek in Turn 3, seemingly in retaliation after Nemechek used his bumper to move Preece out of the way in Turn 2. However, the contact sent Nemechek spinning, and he hit the outside wall.

Advancing from the final heat race were Reddick, Christopher Bell, Preece, Austin Cindric, and Todd Gilliland.

NEXT: The Last Chance Qualifying race at 6 p.m. ET Sunday.

Chase Elliott’s new NAPA paint scheme for 2025 NASCAR season revealed

Chase Elliott’s NAPA paint scheme for the 2025 NASCAR season has been revealed. Check out the new look on Elliott’s No. 9 NAPA car!

[autotag]Chase Elliott[/autotag] and NAPA’s relationship will continue into the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season, and Hendrick Motorsports has revealed a new look. On Tuesday morning, Hendrick Motorsports released Elliott’s new NAPA paint scheme, which has a few major differences compared to the 2024 Cup Series season.

Elliott’s No. 9 NAPA Chevrolet will no longer feature the white stripes and be replaced with thinner yellow stripes. Also, the yellow design on the door in between the No. 9 and the NAPA logo will no longer be filled in with yellow. Instead, it will be outlined with yellow. Overall, the new No. 9 NAPA Chevrolet makes the blue base pop out more with yellow replacing white.

The paint scheme didn’t have a complete overhaul, but the significant differences resulted in the NAPA paint scheme being more blue and yellow. Elliott didn’t bring the No. 9 NAPA car to victory lane in 2024, but the hope is that it changes in 2025. The company hasn’t reached victory lane in the Cup Series since 2022, and Elliott hopes to end that draught next year.

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Chase Elliott posts funny reply to Denny Hamlin’s Spotify Wrapped edit

Chase Elliott posts a funny reply to Denny Hamlin’s Spotify Wrapped edit in 2024. Check out Elliott’s hilarious reply to Hamlin!

[autotag]Denny Hamlin[/autotag] posted his “Spotify Wrapped” on Wednesday afternoon for 2024, but it wasn’t the typical release. Hamlin revealed his own version of Spotify Wrapped, which had some funny twists. The Joe Gibbs Racing driver had three top songs, including “Boo” by Everyone, “Zero Championships” by Hendrick Motorsports fans, and “I love your podcast,” which was heard 2,311 times.

On the “Zero Championships” edit, there is a meme of Spongebob Squarepants with a [autotag]Chase Elliott[/autotag] hat, and the Hendrick Motorsports driver saw the post. In fact, Elliott replied to Hamlin’s X post by saying, “Hats for sale btw” and posted a link to his website. As of now, we haven’t seen a clever reply from Hamlin.

The NASCAR season is over, but it’s nice to see Hamlin and Elliott still going back and forth on social media. It may be over Spotify Wrapped and not racing, but hey, it’s still fun! About two months remain before NASCAR returns to Florida for the 2025 Daytona 500, but the drivers are sure enjoying the time off!

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Chase Elliott’s new UniFirst paint scheme, NASCAR schedule revealed for 2025

Chase Elliott’s new UniFirst paint scheme and NASCAR schedule have been revealed for 2025. Check out the new look on Elliott’s No. 9 car!

[autotag]Chase Elliott[/autotag] will have a new UniFirst paint scheme for the 2025 NASCAR season. On Monday morning, Hendrick Motorsports revealed an updated UniFirst paint scheme for Elliott, which features a green base with gray on the rear of the car. The No. 9 will be black, which is different from the 2024 edition, which had a white base with a little bit of green.

Elliott will pilot the No. 9 UniFirst Chevrolet in five races during the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season. Elliott will debut his new scheme at Homestead-Miami Speedway on March 23. The rest of the schedule includes Darlington Raceway on April 6, Michigan International Speedway on June 8, Richmond Raceway on August 16, and the Charlotte ROVAL on October 5.

For the rest of the 2025 NASCAR season, UniFirst will serve as an associate sponsor on the No. 9 car. Elliott bounced back after a rough 2023 season but only won a single race at Texas Motor Speedway in April 2024. UniFirst hopes Elliott’s second year off his leg injury will be even better, as the company hopes to enter victory lane in 2025.

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Chase Elliott wins Most Popular Driver award in Cup Series for 2024

Chase Elliott wins the 2024 Most Popular Driver award in the NASCAR Cup Series for the seventh straight year!

[autotag]Chase Elliott[/autotag] has officially been named the 2024 Most Popular Driver Award winner in the NASCAR Cup Series. Elliott received the honor at NASCAR’s banquet in Charlotte, North Carolina, as the sport celebrates its 2024 season. This is the seventh straight season he has received the award and the only winner since Dale Earnhardt Jr. retired at the conclusion of the 2017 season.

Eliott won the award after having a better year at Hendrick Motorsports. The driver of the No. 9 car was eliminated in the Round of 8 but was roughly 20 laps away from making the Championship 4, if not for a late-race pass by Ryan Blaney. Elliott finished the 2024 NASCAR season with one win, 11 top-5 finishes, 19 top-10 finishes, and a seventh-place finish in the point standings.

The Most Popular Driver award is likely Elliott’s for the foreseeable future. If he can win despite having two consecutive seasons below his expectations, there is no doubt that it will continue moving forward. It will be interesting to see how many awards Elliott can win in a row after claiming his seventh straight in 2024.

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Listen to Chase Elliott, No. 9 team react to pace car crash at Phoenix in 2024

Listen to Chase Elliott and the No. 9 team react to the pace car crashing into the sand barrels at Phoenix Raceway in 2024.

[autotag]Chase Elliott[/autotag] had a front-row seat for one of NASCAR’s most bizarre moments of the 2024 Cup Series season. At the start of Stage 2, the pace car dove onto pit road in front of Elliott; however, it was a tad too late. The pace car made contact with the sand barrels at the entry of pit road and caused a red flag for cleanup.

Initially, there was some speculation on the NBC Sports broadcast, even from the No. 9 team, that Elliott made contact with the pace car. Fortunately, the pace car didn’t slide across the No. 9 car’s nose, but it undoubtedly provided one of NASCAR’s craziest red flag moments in recent memory.

Below, you can listen to Elliott and the No. 9 team react to the pace car crashing into the sand barrels on pit road at Phoenix during Championship Weekend!

What a crazy way to end the 2024 NASCAR season!

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Chase Elliott’s path to the Championship 4 requires a win at Martinsville in 2024

Chase Elliott is not mathematically in a “must-win situation,” but his path to the Championship 4 almost requires a win at Martinsville.

[autotag]Chase Elliott[/autotag] had a brilliant performance at Homestead-Miami Speedway last weekend, but it wasn’t enough for the victory. Elliott brought the No. 9 car home with a fifth-place finish and a staggering 49 points; however, he still left Homestead with a 43-point deficit to the playoff cut-line. It isn’t mathematically a “must-win situation,” but what needs to happen is clear.

Elliott’s realistic path to the Championship 4 requires a win at Martinsville Speedway in the Round of 8 finale this weekend. The Hendrick Motorsports driver won at Martinsville when needed in 2020, which provides the layout of what needs to occur on Sunday. In fact, Elliott finished in third place behind teammates William Byron and Kyle Larson in the spring.

There is no doubt that Elliott can compete for the win at Martinsville, but he must find a way to finish the event. Before his third-place finish in April, Elliott had a best finish of 10th place three times in five races. The driver of the No. 9 car also led at least 80 laps in three of those five races, so it strictly comes down to his performance near the end of the race in the Final Stage.

Elliott is one of NASCAR’s best drivers at Martinsville, and the points won’t matter when the No. 9 team hits the track for practice and qualifying on Saturday. There isn’t a realistic path for a Championship 4 berth on points, so it’s all hands on deck moving forward. Elliott needs a win at the most important time, and it wouldn’t be shocking to see him in victory lane.

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Hendrick Playoff drivers confident of advancing to title race

The three Hendrick Motorsports teammates who are still fighting for a spot in the NASCAR Cup Series championship race have all expressed confidence about their chances to advance with one race left in the Round of 8. But all three drivers face …

The three Hendrick Motorsports teammates who are still fighting for a spot in the NASCAR Cup Series championship race have all expressed confidence about their chances to advance with one race left in the Round of 8.

But all three drivers face different challenges going into the elimination race. William Byron is the only Hendrick driver sitting in a transfer spot, but he’s on the bubble with a slim seven-point advantage.

“Absolutely,” Byron said of getting the job done at Martinsville Speedway (Sunday, 2 p.m. ET). “We did it in the spring, so we should be able to.”

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Byron’s spring triumph at Martinsville Speedway was his third win in the first eight races of the season. He hasn’t won since.

On Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway, Byron finished sixth. It was his fifth consecutive top 10 finish, however, a victory by Tyler Reddick shrunk Byron’s advantage on the cutline by 20 points.

“We kind of had what we had (Sunday),” Byron said. “We weren’t good enough, and we were just trying to get all we could. I feel like a sixth-place finish is good. If it had gone green there, we were going to end up top-five. I don’t know how that changes the points, but we just have to go to Martinsville Speedway and compete for a win.”

Byron sits one spot ahead of Kyle Larson, who is seven points out of a transfer spot. For the second straight week, Larson and his team had to fight from behind after an early race issue.

At Homestead, it was a puncture that caused Larson to hit the wall in the first stage. He then spun in the final stage, with 13 laps to go, while battling Ryan Blaney for the race lead. Larson tried to squeeze between Blaney and Austin Dillon in Turn 3.

“You’re making split-second decisions,” Larson said after finishing 13th. “Austin did nothing wrong. I was just hoping that he would see me coming as (Blaney) got to his inside, and maybe he’d run a lane off the wall just to give me some clean air. He continued to run his line.

“I had a little bit of a hole and I was trying to shoot the gap to get in front of the No. 3 and get to the wall quickly to either hopefully stay on the outside of the No. 12 or build a run to have a shot at him in (Turns) 1 and 2. But yeah, it just didn’t work out.

“I was going as hard as I could. The No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevy team did a great job rebounding after the flat tire.”

Larson was the biggest points loser Sunday. He went from 35 points above the cutline to seven below.

“We’ve been strong at Martinsville at times, so we’ll see,” Larson said. “It’s not my best track, but I’ve been a lot better there since I joined Hendrick Motorsports. We just need to qualify well and give it our best shot.”

Meanwhile, Chase Elliott shaved some points off his deficit towards a transfer spot but is still in a must win situation. Elliott finished fifth at Homestead after an early DNF in the opening race of the round at Las Vegas when collected in a multi-car crash. Elliott is last on the playoff grid in a 43-point hole.

“I just got tighter and tighter as the day went on,” Elliott said of Sunday’s race. “I was just trying to manage that on the front side of a run, and ultimately, I just didn’t do a great job of managing it. When the pace got quicker and everyone started pushing, I didn’t really have anything left to push.

“It was a really solid couple of weeks for the No. 9 NAPA Chevy team, from a pace perspective. That’s encouraging as you move along in the playoffs.”

Elliott, like his teammates, is a winner at Martinsville Speedway. Elliott won the fall race at Martinsville in 2020, which advanced him into the championship race which he went on to win and claim the Cup Series title.

“Very confident,” Elliott said of the upcoming weekend.

Hendrick Motorsports has won five of the last eight Martinsville Speedway races. Following Eliott’s win in 2020, Alex Bowman won in the fall of 2021, Byron in the spring of 2022, and Larson in the spring of 2023. Plus, the aforementioned Byron victory from earlier this season.

And in the spring race from April, Hendrick Motorsports went 1-2-3 in a race that celebrated its 40th anniversary, with Byron leading Larson and Elliott across the finish line.

Chase Elliott addresses playoff-altering wreck at Las Vegas in 2024

Chase Elliott addresses his playoff-altering wreck at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in 2024. What did Elliott have to say about the big wreck?

[autotag]Chase Elliott[/autotag] entered Las Vegas Motor Speedway with a nine-point deficit to the playoff cut-line, and the worst-case scenario took place. In Stage 2, Elliott found himself with severe damage after an incident with Martin Truex Jr. and Tyler Reddick, which caused the No. 45 car to flip down the front stretch. As a result, the Hendrick Motorsports driver left with a 52-point deficit.

After the event, Elliott addressed the playoff-altering wreck with Reddick and Truex, which has essentially put him in a must-win situation over the next two weeks at Homestead-Miami Speedway and Martinsville Speedway.

“[Tyler Reddick] was coming with a really big run on the top,” Elliott said. “I don’t think [Martin Truex Jr.] knew that, and he was kind of running as if we were two-wide. Once I recognized that there wasn’t going to be enough room, I bailed and there was just nowhere to bail. It was too late. I need to sit down and take a look at it.”

“I was, personally, just trying to get out of the situation, and it was just a little too late at that point. It sucks. Our No. 9 Chevy was really, really good there at the start. It was the best we’ve been out here in this new car, so it was just a bad day for that.”

Elliott arguably had a top-3 or top-5 car at Las Vegas, but he must focus on winning one of the next two races now. The driver of the No. 9 car has a best finish of 14th place at Homestead in the last three races, so it may come down to Martinsville in two weeks. Either way, the wreck has left Elliott in a massive hole, and it will be tough for him to claw himself out of it.

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