KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — The odds were stacked against Chase Elliott as he lined up eighth in overtime at Kansas Speedway in a pivotal NASCAR playoff race.
He had five Toyota drivers ahead of him including Denny Hamlin, who had dominated all of Sunday until a slew of late cautions turned the race upside down.
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Even so, not even Elliott’s own crew believed NASCAR’s most popular driver could steal the win and lock himself into the third round of the playoffs.
“No. No,” crew chief Alan Gustafson said when asked if he thought Elliott had a chance at the start of overtime. “I’m not like, ‘Oh, damn, we’ve got a good shot.’ A couple restarts didn’t go our way, and yeah, you get a little frustrated. The percentage of winning decreases. Did I think that we had a great shot there? No.”
And yet Elliott pulled it off, coming from seemingly nowhere to chase down Hamlin, Bubba Wallace and the fleet of Toyotas. He door-slammed Hamlin to get to the checkered flag first — his second win of the season — and the Hendrick Motorsports driver joins Ryan Blaney as the two drivers already locked into NASCAR’s third round of the playoffs.
Elliott said he believes it is the most exciting victory of his 21 career Cup wins.
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“There are days and moments like today that bring a definite level of excitement for everyone,” Elliott said. “I didn’t know what was going to happen any more than anybody else did. You live this stuff, you live these moments and I was making split-second decisions based off the information I had in front of me at that time.
“I definitely think there’s a level of excitement to that one that I’m not sure I’ve experienced in the Cup series to this point. Any win, though, is great. I’m not going to complain about it.”
Hamlin dominated and led 159 laps until a bevy of late issues denied him his chance at career win No. 60 for Joe Gibbs Racing. The race had a slew of late cautions — Hamlin dropped from the lead to seventh on a slow pit stop — that put Wallace in position to win the race. A red-flag stoppage for Zane Smith flipping his car set up the final overtime restart and Wallace was holding tight in a door-to-door battle with Christopher Bell for the victory.
Then Hamlin came from nowhere to catch Wallace, who drives for the team Hamlin co-owns with Michael Jordan, and Wallace scraped the wall as he tried to hold off his boss. That’s when Elliott suddenly entered the frame and smashed Hamlin in the door to get past him for his second win of the season.
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Elliott and Blaney are locked into the round of eight of the playoffs. The field will be cut from 12 drivers after next week’s race in Concord, North Carolina, and Elliott said once he got in position for the victory, he wasn’t giving up.
“I figured at the end of the day, it was what it was at that point,” Elliott said. “Wherever I ended up, I ended up.”
Hamlin finished second and was clearly dejected by the defeat. The three-time Daytona 500 winner is considered the greatest driver to never win a Cup title and needed the victory to lock up his spot in the next round of the playoffs. He also has a 60th Cup win set as a major career goal and is stuck on 59 victories.
He drove the final 50-plus laps with his power steering on the fritz.
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“Just super disappointing. I wanted it bad. It would have been 60 for me,” Hamlin said. “Obviously got really, really tight with (Wallace), and it just got real tight and we let (Elliott) win. Man, I wanted it for my dad. I wanted it for everybody. Just wanted it a little too hard.”
Hamlin was followed his JGR teammates Bell and Chase Briscoe, who were third and fourth.
Wallace wound up fifth and even though the victory would have moved him deeper into the playoffs than he’s ever been in his career, he was satisfied considering how poorly his car was running earlier in the race. He wasn’t even upset with Hamlin, and shook hands with his boss on pit road.
“To even have a shot at the win with the way we started … you could have fooled me. We were not good,” Wallace said. “Two years ago I’d probably say something dumb (about Hamlin). He’s a dumbass for that move. I don’t care if he’s my boss or not. But we’re going for the win. I hate that we gave it to Chevrolet there.”
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Elliott, in a Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports, was the only non-Toyota driver in the top five.
Bottom four
The four drivers in danger of playoff elimination headed into next Sunday’s race are Ross Chastain, Austin Cindric, Tyler Reddick and Wallace.
Reddick races
Reddick raced Sunday and finished seventh, hours after his wife disclosed on social media their newborn son has been ailing for several months.
Alexa Reddick posted she was in the cardiovascular intensive care unit at a North Carolina hospital with Rookie, the couple’s second son who was born in May, working on improving his “heart function.” She wrote she had been seeking medical care for Rookie for some time without getting any concrete answers for what appeared to be “signs of heart failure that were being missed.
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“Always trust your mom gut,” she added.
Up next
A playoff elimination race at the hybrid oval/road course at Charlotte Motor Speedway, where Kyle Larson won a year ago.
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