Rear-end damage makes for rough Sprint Cup debut
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MARTINSVILLE, Va. — Welcome to the Big Show, Chase Elliott.
The 19-year-old Hendrick Motorsports prospect made his NASCAR Sprint Cup Series debut Sunday at Martinsville Speedway, and he found himself in all kinds of predicaments at one of the most action-packed tracks on the circuit en route to a 38th-place finish that had the wunderkind proclaiming he “had to get better.”
His No. 25 Chevrolet provided plenty of post-race evidence that it was a rough afternoon for the driver who will take over the No. 24 Chevrolet from Jeff Gordon on a full-time basis next year.
Sheet metal was bent in on both sides as his crew pushed the battered car to the hauler, BearBond was stripped across both the front and rear of the vehicle, and strings of duct tape dragged on the ground as a remade front fender gradually began to separate again.
“This is a different ballgame,” Elliott said while walking back to his hauler. “These guys are here in the Sprint Cup Series for a reason, and I’ve got some work to do.” The latter point was later punctuated by a post-race tweet from the full-time JR Motorsports driver.
Despite the self-critique, Elliott made gains as the day improved after being involved in multiple early incidents.
Welcome to Cup, got some work to do!
— Chase Elliott (@chaseelliott) March 29, 2015
Contact on Lap 75 when traffic stacked up caused Elliott and Brett Moffitt to collide, sending the No. 25 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet behind the wall. Elliott’s car dropped debris onto the track, had more pieces hanging off the rear and Elliott radioed to crew chief Kenny Francis that his power steering was gone.
Running 37th at the time of the caution, Elliott steered his Chevrolet behind the wall on Lap 75 for an extensive look.
His cobbled-together crew put the car up on jack stands, stripped the left tires and popped the severely dented hood to fix the power steering issue. While one crewmember pounded on the sheet metal with a mallet, another sprinted through the garage gathering car-repair essentials — BearBond and multiple rolls of duct tape.
On Lap 144, Elliott returned to the track 69 laps down and in last place. He finished 38th and 73 laps down, meaning that in his first start in a car that was significantly hampered, he only lost four laps the rest of the race.
Sunday’s run in the STP 500 was the first of five scheduled Sprint Cup starts for the defending NASCAR XFINITY Series champion. The next attempt comes at Richmond International Raceway, where the Toyota Owners 400 is scheduled for April 25.
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