After getting to the front on a series of late restarts, Chase Elliott survived double overtime and hard charges from both Denny Hamlin and Ross Chastain to win the Autotrader Echopark Automotive 400 at Texas Motor Speedway. Elliott's victory is his first since Talladega in the fall of 2022, ending a 42-race winless streak that dogged the 2020 Cup Series champion and NASCAR's reigning Most Popular Driver.
Elliott got the lead for the final time by getting a nose out in front of Hamlin with eight laps to go. He then held on over the final three restarts as both Hamlin and Chastain wound up crashing out of second behind him.
Elliott's 19th career win was a cathartic one, as it puts him back in the winner's circle for the first time after a difficult 2023 season that saw him miss multiple races due to an off-track injury, one race due to a suspension, and miss the playoffs for the first time in his career.
Early on, it looked as though Sunday's race would be far less competitive than it ended up becoming, as Kyle Larson looked to be the class of the field and to have prohibitively the fastest car. Larson led 77 laps after starting from the pole, won the opening stage, and looked in for a Sunday drive until a pit road miscue wound up catching up to the No. 5 team.
While riding under caution following a spin by Carson Hocevar, Larson suddenly dropped off the pace with smoke trailing from his right rear wheel, which had not been properly attached on his last pit stop. The wheel came off as Larson dropped to the apron of Turn 1, leaving him to drive back to the pits on three wheels where he had to serve a two-lap penalty from NASCAR for the on-track loss of a loose wheel.
Due to the amount of cautions during the day, Larson was eventually able to get both of his laps back by virtue of the free pass, and by the end of Stage 2 he was back on the lead lap and seemingly set up to drive back to the front. But Larson's car was never the same back in traffic -- and likely with some damage from the underside of his car dragging on the racetrack -- and he would wind up finishing 21st after getting spun during a late restart.
The crash that ended the race on the final lap should not go unmentioned, as it both cost Ross Chastain another top-five finish and came off the bumper of the winningest driver of the 2024 season. After getting a run on Chastain just as the No. 1 appeared to lose some momentum on the exit of Turn 2, William Byron's car ran straight into the back of Chastain's, sending it spinning into the wall and down the racetrack.
It's off to the biggest and fastest speedway on Earth as the NASCAR Cup Series heads to Talladega Superspeedway for the GEICO 500 next Sunday at 3 p.m. ET on Fox.
