DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. - Chase Elliott walked slowly and dejectedly from the Daytona International Speedway infield care center, eyes hidden behind sunglasses, hands crammed deep into the pockets of his firesuit. Waiting for him behind a steel barrier was a brigade of reporters, cameras and microphones at the ready.
Elliott’s previous encounters with the media here had been triumphant. A week earlier, he had put together the fastest lap of any qualifier to win the Coors Light Pole for the Daytona 500. On Saturday, he drove brilliantly to victory in the Powershares QQQ 300 NASCAR Xfinity Series race.
In an instant, things changed.
The 20-year-old’s Daytona 500 debut was essentially over 19 laps into the race Sunday afternoon as he wrecked coming out of turn 4. Elliott careened through the tri-oval grass in front of pit road, plowing up a patch of turf and destroying the front end of his No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet.
“I’m not sure (what happened),” Elliott said. “Just turned around there off of 4. Got in the middle and got loose. Lost it and spun out. I hate it for everybody, at less than 20 laps in and have something dumb like that happen.”
The media scene repeated itself a couple of hours later, this time with his Hendrick teammate and pre-race favorite Dale Earnhardt, Jr. having wrecked his car on lap 170.
“Driver mistake,” Earnhardt said.
He was a victim of aerodynamics and a car that simply got out from under him.
“I was trying to side-draft a guy beside me and, boy, it pinned the right front. All the downforce there,” Earnhardt said. After enjoying what he called a “rocket” during practice sessions and in night races, “We really underestimated how important handling was going to be today.”
He had taken only two tires in a previous pit stop and “just didn’t have the overall grip I was hoping for. I was aggressive trying to side-draft guys and move forward. We were making some ground on the leaders a little bit so that was looking pretty good because the outside line really hadn’t been doing anything all day. Just busted my butt there.”
It was a butt-busting day for Hendrick Motorsports. Earnhardt finished 36th, Elliott returned to the race 40 laps in arrears to finish 37th and Jimmie Johnson’s crew was penalized for a pit road violation and he was 16th. Kasey Kahne, at 13th, was the top Hendrick car.
Elliott led the first three laps before yielding to Earnhardt. Elliott still ran in the lead draft until the spin.
“I hate it,” he continued. “It’s been such a fun week and you hate to end the race before it even got started.”
The fun week thrust Elliott into the spotlight as the speedway’s youngest pole winner, with a speed of 196.314 mph. That’s more than 14 mph slower than the pre-restrictor plate pole record of 210.364, set in 1987 by a guy named Bill Elliott.
That led to torrents of praise over Elliott’s potential, with much credit ladled onto the influence of his father, a two-time Daytona 500 winner and the 1988 NASCAR champion. Said Johnson, “He’s watched his father have great success. He’s got a very, very good pulse on things. We all see it and we all know he’s going to do a very good job.”
Elliott was sixth in Thursday’s Can-Am Duel qualifying race, a solid ride in which protecting his car was priority one. Then he drove his Dale Earnhardt Jr.-owned No. 88 Chevrolet to the Xfinity win, holding off Joey Logano.
But Sunday’s afternoon of promise ended too soon.
“We’ll just have to look past it and get on for Atlanta,” he said. “That’s the most important thing now. We can’t get caught up in what happened today. It’s irrelevant now. … It’s on to Atlanta.”
