Chase Elliott holds off Denny Hamlin, captures historic Cup Series win on Daytona Road Course

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Holly Cain NASCAR Wire Service August 16, 2020 at 6:44 PMNo practice, no qualifying, new course — no problem for Hendrick Motorsports driver Chase Elliott.

The 24-year-old Elliott gave a not-so-subtle reminder Sunday afternoon in the NASCAR Cup Series debut on the Daytona International Speedway Road Course that he is one of the sport’s very best on the technical road circuits, even sight unseen as was the case this week.

RELATED: Official race results | 2020 stage points

Just before a caution flag with five laps remaining, Elliott had pulled out to a 10-second advantage on the field. He turned in a fantastic restart and drove three perfect final laps in his No. 9 Chevrolet to hold off Denny Hamlin by .202 seconds to win the GoBowling 235. It was Elliott’s third consecutive road-course win dating back to last year.

“Just had a really good car more than anything, not sure I did anything special today,” Elliott said. “Really fortunate from that standpoint. Had a good week of preparation and came out and really executed on the race.”

Elliott said he was hardly surprised about the late-race restart and prepared for it.

“To me was not when, but how many green-white-checkers we were going to have to do in a row and being better at executing those,” Elliott said. “Any win at Daytona is special. (Crew chief) Alan (Gustafson) and I were joking that we had to change it to a road course to win at Daytona. … Just a great day.”

Hamlin’s Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Martin Truex Jr. finished third followed by seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson and Chris Buescher. Clint Bowyer, Kaz Grala (who was substituting for Austin Dillon in the No. 3 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet), William Byron, Joey Logano and Michael McDowell completed the top 10 in a race so smooth and expertly handled that it more closely resembled an age-old venue than a first-time visit on a challenging 3.61-mile, 14-turn course.

“Let’s make sure we don’t look like a bunch of dummies there in Turn 1,” Hamlin said of a pre-race conversation with fellow drivers about the new venue. “We made sure we kept it clean to start and then you can get your bearings about you after you run a few laps. Really, it’s one of the those tracks where it’s not super technical but it definitely rewards the guys that do the right techniques on road courses.”

The veteran NASCAR Cup Series drivers immediately put on a driving display that seemed as if they had long raced on the circuit — which includes a tight infield road course as well as Daytona’s more famous high-banked turns.

Elliott has proven himself a road-course favorite even though he’s only in his fifth full-time season. He led the most laps — 34 of the 65 — and won the first stage on Sunday with Hamlin winning the second stage. Outside of regular pit stops, Elliott was either leading or about to lead all afternoon, resulting in Elliott’s eighth career win and second of the season — matching a victory in May at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

“I just wanted to keep him honest and it seemed like the closer we got the more his car was either wheel-hopping or sliding the front tires, so we were at least keeping him honest there to make him push his car and earn the victory,” said Hamlin, a five-race winner in 2020 and driver of the No. 11 Toyota.

Championship points leader and six-race winner Kevin Harvick had an eventful day in the No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford — contact with another car while running near the front and then another spin later in the race. He finished 17th but still leads the championship by 118 points over Hamlin.

Only three races remain to set the 16-driver NASCAR Playoffs field. Byron is in the 16th position with a 25-point edge over Hendrick Motorsports teammate Johnson and a 35-point advantage over 18th-place Erik Jones with a doubleheader weekend scheduled next week on the 1-mile Dover International Speedway before the series returns to the Daytona 2.5-mile superspeedway for the regular-season finale.

Note: Inspection in the NASCAR Cup Series garage resulted in no major issues. The No. 4 of Kevin Harvick and the No. 19 of Martin Truex Jr. each had one lug nut not safe and secure in post-race inspection.
Each loose lug nut is worth $10,000 fine.

 

Chase Elliott proving to be a ‘world-class road racer’

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Terrin Waack NASCAR.com August 17, 2020 at 8:21 AMTwists and turns are no match for Chase Elliott.

With now four of his eight career wins happening on non-oval tracks, the 24-year-old continues to prove he can successfully steer his No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet both left and right. He has mastered the art of road-course racing, which is not as common in NASCAR. In addition to Elliott, only three drivers in the sport’s history have ever won at three different road courses — Geoff Bodine, Rusty Wallace and Ricky Rudd.

“I’ve just had really good cars I think more than anything,” Elliott said.

There has to be more to it.

“I mean, he’s just a very talented driver,” said Alan Gustafson, Elliott’s crew chief. “With any good driver, they have the ability to slow things down, and when you’re running a new track or running at the speeds they run, they can slow it down to where they can make the right decisions and adjustments, and he does a fabulous job of that. Really from the first time I worked with him at a road course, I knew he was really good and just needed some experience and needed to understand the cars.”

Elliott earned his second 2020 victory in Sunday’s race at the Daytona International Speedway Road Course with absolutely no previous exposure beyond simulator time. The Go Bowling 235 was the NASCAR Cup Series’ debut on the famed road course. The 14-turn layout spans 3.61 miles and includes a portion of the high-banked oval as well as a tight infield section.

Throughout the 65-lap event, Elliott led three times for a race-high 34 laps, including the final 13 circuits. He did have to hold off his competition — mainly runner-up Denny Hamlin — on a late-race restart with three laps to go, too.

Elliott beat Hamlin to the finish line by .202 seconds.

“I think he takes a little bit untraditional lines,” Hamlin said. “I think he does a great job of staying out of the rubber. I think his car really does a lot of good things that you would like for your car to do. Their car doesn’t move around a whole lot, with roll and pitch and whatnot. So I think they’ve really got a great road-course setup, and he executes it, and that’s going to equal a lot of success.”

RELATED: NASCAR’s all-time winners on road courses

The only road course on the Cup Series schedule Elliott has yet to win on is the 12-turn, 2.52-mile Sonoma Raceway. Because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the California track was scratched from the 2020 schedule. As was Watkins Glen International in New York, where Elliott won his first-ever Cup race in 2018. He has two victories — the other in 2019 — on that 2.45-mile, seven-turn course. The Daytona Road Course actually replaced Watkins Glen on this year’s schedule.

Elliott’s other win was on the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval (2019), which, like the Daytona Road Course, incorporates part of the oval into its layout. The Charlotte Roval debuted its 2.32 miles over 17 turns in 2018, too, so it’s still new.

And Elliott still conquered it in a timely fashion.

“I think he’s a world-class race car driver,” Gustafson said. “Certainly a world-class road racer.”

 

CRANDALL: Daytona's road course should be a permanent Cup fixture

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emailBy Kelly Crandall | 11 hours ago

The NASCAR community is often guilty of the ‘Shiny New Thing Syndrome.’ Whether in the industry or the grandstands, wave around something different and new, and the mania begins.

New drivers. New cars. New rules. New tracks. As soon as something breaks away from the norm, we become as excited as Dale Earnhardt Jr. when he gets to say slide job on a broadcast.

Over the weekend, the shiny new thing was the Daytona road course. Fourteen turns with a tight technical infield at a famed Florida speedway and used for stock cars for the first time. Road course racing! No practice! Enter Turn 1 at your own risk!

For the most part, the weekend action seemed to be well received. I say for the most part because judging by some social media chatter late Sunday night, some fumed the television coverage could have been better. And that was excluding having no post-race coverage, which for NBC Sports was the absolute worst-case scenario with a hard out because of local and national news plus the NHL Playoffs.

For clarity, I was amongst the few who were covering the race from the Daytona press box, so I can’t speak to the television coverage as I got to watch the race with bright, wide eyes that waited for mayhem. But mayhem stayed home, and good racing showed up. Good, not great. But again, from a viewpoint above the racetrack, it was enjoyable to watch.

All three NASCAR national series showed themselves well, and the field in Friday night’s ARCA Series race also deserves kudos. Those drivers are often expected and sometimes unfairly predicted to be less than entertaining, but their race was clean and fun in wet conditions. Job well done, young guns.

It didn’t take long for the future of the shiny new thing to be brought up. Chase Elliott took the checkered flag shortly before 6:30 p.m. ET, and by 6:45 p.m. ET, NASCAR’s Scott Miller was asked about the potential for the Daytona road course being put on the schedule going forward. Remember, Daytona is a one-off to replace Watkins Glen, where the sport couldn’t get to this season.

“Well, I think that we certainly proved that it works, and we can put on an exciting show here,” said Miller. “I’m sure it will go into the talks of consideration for us coming back.”

Daytona is now “one of my favorite road courses I’ve run,” said Denny Hamlin. The Joe Gibbs Racing driver used his post-race media availability to express his hope that it gets put on the schedule and has been saying the same on Twitter.


Martin Truex Jr. admitted he had more fun than he anticipated. Truex thought the Cup Series race was good without a ton of crashes and drivers doing crazy stuff.

“I thought the race went really well,” he said. “The racing was good. You could make passes if you were faster than a guy, and that’s always, as a competitor, what you’re looking for, and I think that’s what puts on a good show. So, I’d be totally fine with it (being on the schedule).”

Joey Logano and Michael McDowell also gave the Daytona road course their thumbs up. Unless something changes, there will be at least one more Cup Series race on the course with the non-points Busch Clash contested on it in February.

Daytona might have high banks and be inside an already established oval (wait, I think there is a name for that. Roval, is it?), but it raced like a legitimate road course. Ideally, NASCAR would look at road courses all over the country, or return to Montreal, but if they are going to keep with venues they have then Daytona will do. It would be better than nothing.

Sonoma, Watkins Glen, and the Charlotte Roval aren’t enough. The Cup schedule could use more road course races and fewer intermediates. The Xfinity Series schedule has more road courses on it than the Cup schedule! Confession, I say all of this while wearing a t-shirt that demands, ‘More Road Courses.’

Yes, I, too, have ‘Shiny New Thing Syndrome’ this week. But in this case, it’s worth looking at making the Daytona road course a worn-out old habit.

 

NASCAR issues lug nut penalties after Daytona tripleheader

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emailBy Kelly Crandall | 12 hours ago

Two crew chiefs fined for unsecure lug nuts were the only infractions noted by NASCAR following a tripleheader weekend of road course racing at Daytona International Speedway.

Both were from the Cup Series and listed on the Tuesday penalty report. One lug nut not being secure on a car costs $10,000.

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James Small of Joe Gibbs Racing was fined for one lug nut not being safe and secure on Martin Truex Jr.’s Toyota. Truex finished third in the Go Bowling 235, rebounding from a speeding penalty near the end of the second stage.

Rodney Childers was fined the same amount for one lug nut not being safe and secure on Kevin Harvick’s Ford Mustang. It was a rough outing for the Stewart-Haas Racing group on Sunday afternoon as Harvick started from the pole but was spun from second place by Christopher Bell in the final stage, then spun by himself later in the day. Harvick finished 17th.

The Daytona road course hosted all three national series for the first time over the weekend.

Daytona, Cup Series, NASCAR