Four days ago, Chase Elliott had the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway won. But a late caution and a pit stop left him with a second place finish and a broken heart.
On Thursday night, he healed his heart with a trip to Charlotte’s victory lane – and he turned the “si-reen” back on for the second time in a week at the Dawsonville Pool Room.
Elliott bypassed Kevin Harvick to take the lead with 27 laps to go in the NASCAR Cup Series Alsco 500, and drove away from the competition to score the victory.
“It feels awesome. Man, it was a tough week, for sure,” said Elliott. “We’ve had some tough losses, but that deal on Sunday night was a heartbreaker. 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, Chevrolet, and everybody at the shop have been working really hard.”
It’s the first Cup Series win of the year for the Dawsonville, Georgia native, and it comes two days after scoring a win in the NASCAR Gander Truck Series event at Charlotte.
It’s Elliott’s seventh career series victory and his first on the 1.5-mile Charlotte Motor Speedway oval layout. His most recent Cup win prior to Thursday night came on Charlotte’s infield road course layout, making him the first driver to win on both layouts.
“We battled hard and finally got our car good enough there at the end,” Elliott said. “I’m not sure that we had it exactly perfect, but the guys did a great job making good adjustments and good pit stops there to put us in a position, and I think the race going long played into our favor as compared to what Kevin had to work with. Just had some good fortune and things went our way.”
Elliott started the night from the 19th starting spot after finishing second in Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600, with the starting lineup set by an invert of the top 20 finishers from Sunday night.
After moving to third following the final round of pit stops on lap 145, Elliott worked his way around Ryan Blaney for second, and then began closing on Harvick.
Once he made the final pass for the lead, Elliott sailed away uncontested to the win.
“I was just waiting for the caution to come out, to be honest with you,” said Elliott. “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.”
Kevin Harvick had a commanding lead going into the final 40 laps, but he pace began slowing a few laps later. Once he lost the lead to Elliott, he began free-falling through the top 10, eventually finishing 10th.
“It just falls off after lap 30,” Harvick said. “We knew that’s what we had with our Busch Light Ford and it went straight 60-some laps. They did a really good job turning the car around. It was the total opposite of what we raced last Sunday, so it was a good test session for us. We just didn’t need a long run.”
Denny Hamlin was not in the picture for much of the race, but began working his way through the field during the final segment. He would charge his way to second on the final lap, bypassing Blaney for the runner-up spot.
“Eventually the air pressure built up enough to where it got off the race track,” Hamlin said. “The pit crew just did a phenomenal job picking up a bunch of spots. Our whole FedEx team prepared a good car. Every time we come back to a race track for the second time, our results are really, really good. We’re making good adjustments, I had a really good Camry, just needed to be a little better in the short run there.”
Blaney held on for a third place finish, his third top five of the season.
“We got to second and the 4 (Harvick) was really fast getting going and the 9 (Elliott) got by me,” Blaney said. “I kind of messed up three and four and allowed him to get by me. I kind of thought I was equal with him when we were both running the 4 down and I just got tight. I was a little bit free all night and we tightened it up just a touch for that last run, and it was the longest run we had, and we just kind of burned the right-front off of it and couldn’t stay with the 9 there late in the run, and then the 11 (Hamlin) got by me.”
With the race running mostly clean, one bump in the road came for Elliott’s Hendrick Motorsports teammate, Alex Bowman, who ran in the top three for much of the first half of the race. But hard contact with the outside wall on lap 135 left him with right side damage and ended his win hopes.
Another driver who was expected to contend for the win was defending series champion Kyle Busch, who scored the NASCAR Xfinity Series win at Charlotte on Monday night.
Busch was in the middle of a four-wide battle for position on lap 64 when he made contact with Aric Almirola, leaving Busch’s No. 18 Toyota with left-rear damage and a flat tire.
Busch made a green flag pit stop to change the tire, leaving him two laps down. He would finish 29th on the night.
The race had been slated to run on Wednesday night, but torrential rains from tropical depression Bertha pushed the event to Thursday night. The wet weather wasn’t done, as storms roared through the Concord, North Carolina area as the race reached the 30-lap mark, halting the action for about an hour and 15 minutes.
Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. finished in fourth, with Kurt Busch in fifth.
Joey Logano, Brad Keselowski, Austin Dillon, Martin Truex, Jr. and Harvick rounded out the top 10.
NASCAR Cup Series
Charlotte Motor Speedway – Concord, NC
Alsco Uniforms 500 – May 27, 2020
1. (19) Chase Elliott, Chevrolet, 208.
2. (29) Denny Hamlin, Toyota, 208.
3. (18) Ryan Blaney, Ford, 208.
4. (24) Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., Chevrolet, 208.
5. (14) Kurt Busch, Chevrolet, 208.
6. (8) Joey Logano, Ford, 208.
7. (20) Brad Keselowski, Ford, 208.
8. (7) Austin Dillon, Chevrolet, 208.
9. (15) Martin Truex, Jr., Toyota, 208.
10. (16) Kevin Harvick, Ford, 208.
11. (40) Jimmie Johnson, Chevrolet, 208.
12. (1) William Byron, Chevrolet, 208.
13. (5) John Hunter Nemechek #, Ford, 208.
14. (13) Tyler Reddick #, Chevrolet, 208.
15. (4) Matt DiBenedetto, Ford, 208.
16. (39) Clint Bowyer, Ford, 208.
17. (27) Ryan Newman, Ford, 208.
18. (9) Cole Custer #, Ford, 208.
19. (23) Corey LaJoie, Ford, 208.
20. (6) Aric Almirola, Ford, 208.
21. (12) Christopher Bell #, Toyota, 208.
22. (11) Chris Buescher, Ford, 208.
23. (26) Matt Kenseth, Chevrolet, 207.
24. (22) Ryan Preece, Chevrolet, 207.
25. (3) Michael McDowell, Ford, 207.
26. (10) Erik Jones, Toyota, 207.
27. (25) Ty Dillon, Chevrolet, 207.
28. (28) Daniel Suarez, Toyota, 207.
29. (17) Kyle Busch, Toyota, 207.
30. (31) Gray Gaulding, Ford, 206.
31. (2) Alex Bowman, Chevrolet, 206.
32. (35) Quin Houff #, Chevrolet, 205.
33. (34) Timmy Hill(i), Toyota, 205.
34. (21) J.J. Yeley(i), Chevrolet, 204.
35. (32) B.J. McLeod(i), Ford, 203.
36. (37) Josh Bilicki(i), Chevrolet, 200.
37. (38) Bubba Wallace, Chevrolet, Accident, 165.
38. (30) Brennan Poole #, Chevrolet, Accident, 86.
39. (36) Joey Gase(i), Ford, DVP, 8.
40. (33) Garrett Smithley(i), Chevrolet, Accident, 0.
Average Speed of Race Winner: 125.315 mph.
Time of Race: 2 Hrs, 29 Mins, 23 Secs. Margin of Victory: 2.208 Seconds.
Caution Flags: 7 for 37 laps.
Lead Changes: 15 among 8 drivers.
Lap Leaders: W. Byron 0;M. DiBenedetto 1-9;W. Byron 10;M. DiBenedetto 11;W. Byron 12-21;J. Logano 22-23;M. McDowell 24;J. Logano 25-57;R. Blaney 58;J. Logano 59-65;K. Harvick 66-74;A. Bowman 75-125;K. Harvick 126-145;R. Blaney 146;K. Harvick 147-180;C. Elliott 181-208.
Leaders Summary: (Driver, Times Lead, Laps Led) Kevin Harvick 3 times for 63 laps; Alex Bowman 1 time for 51 laps; Joey Logano 3 times for 42 laps; Chase Elliott 1 time for 28 laps; William Byron 2 times for 11 laps; Matt DiBenedetto 2 times for 10 laps; Ryan Blaney 2 times for 2 laps; Michael McDowell 1 time for 1 lap.
Stage #1 Top Ten: 22,12,21,4,88,47,3,1,9,17
Stage #2 Top Ten: 88,12,22,9,4,1,3,38,95,43
Top 10 in Points: 1. Kevin Harvick – 331 (1 Win); 2. Joey Logano – 317 (2 Wins); 4. Alex Bowman – 288 (1 Win); 5. Brad Keselowski – 265 (1 Win); 6. Ryan Blaney – 264; 7. Martin Truex, Jr. – 263; 8. Denny Hamlin – 244 (2 Wins); 9. Aric Almirola – 225; 10. Kurt Busch – 223.
