KANSAS CITY, Kan. – It wasn’t a win, but a runner-up finish got the job done for Chase Elliott at Kansas Speedway.
Elliott’s clutch effort in Sunday afternoon’s Hollywood Casino 400 propelled him into the Round of 8 in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs, earning the final berth over Brad Keselowski by just three points. The final NASCAR Overtime restart served as Keselowski’s kryptonite, as he lost six spots and faded to a 19th-place finish.
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Facing a 22-point deficit at the start of the day, Elliott earned a total of 15 points for finishing second in Stage 1 and fifth in Stage 2 to add to his race total, while Keselowski collected just five stage points.
“To battle for the win, I was proud of that,” Elliott said. “We weren’t the best car by any stretch, but I felt like we kind of came here with a mindset of having to win.”
After pitting for tires in the closing laps, Elliott was able to work his way up from eighth to the second-place position. Elliott gave eventual winner Denny Hamlin a run for the lead before Bubba Wallace spun in Turn 2 to set up the first of two overtime restarts.
“To be honest with you, I was liking my chances before the caution came out,” Elliott said. “I was on four tires. I think Denny was on two. I had a little momentum. Who knows if I could have ever passed him, but I felt like that was going to be my best shot to win the race.”
Alan Gustafson, crew chief for the No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, also thought Elliott was in an ideal position to take over the top spot from Hamlin before the Wallace incident.
“We passed Kyle (Busch) and he thought he was squared up to pass Denny there when the 43 (Wallace) wrecked,” Gustafson said. “You think you’re in good shape and then that happens. We just knew we had a good opportunity. It was close with the 2 (Keselowski). He was struggling. Just good we could get all we could get.”
Both Elliott and Gustafson acknowledged the Round of 12 was tough, kicking it off with a last-place finish at Dover International Speedway and overcoming a crash to place eighth at Talladega Superspeedway.
“It’s never easy,” Gustafson said. “Dover was tough. That was probably in my career one of the more difficult things to go through. You come off the high of winning at the (Charlotte Motor Speedway) Roval and we worked really hard to accrue a good amount of bonus points.”
But in the end, being at the right place at the right time gave Elliott a chance to fight another day.
“We just got lucky, really,” Elliott said. “To run second was good; wish we could have won. But the rest of it really didn’t have to do with me, just good fortune and getting the right amount of points.
“To go through all the stuff we did these past two weeks and still move on is a … is a wonder, that’s for sure.”
Despite coming up just short of picking up his fourth win of the year, Elliott believes the second-place result showcased what the No. 9 team is made of moving forward into the final push toward the Championship 4 race at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
“For us to go out and battle for the win is what a really good team is made of and what you’re going to have to do if you’re ever going to make it to Homestead,” Elliott said. “That’s the reality of where we are. Glad we get to fight another week and we’ll go to Martinsville (Speedway) and try to get a win in one of these next three weeks.”
Now the team moves on to the first Round of 8 race next weekend at Martinsville, a place where Gustafson has visited Victory Lane before to make the Championship 4 with Jeff Gordon in 2015.
“Just looking forward to getting there and going at it,” Gustafson said. “We’ve been kind of finicky, kind of hit or miss. … I’m excited to go there, but I need to go to work on it now to make sure all the I’s are dotted and all the T’s are crossed.”
Elliott echoed his crew chief’s analysis.
“I felt like we’ve had good runs there, I felt like we had bad runs there,” Elliott said. “I really haven’t done anything different. We just really need to do our homework this week and focus on it.”