Chase Elliott making a pit stop during the Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway. (Photo: Wayne Riegle | The Podium Finish)
BRISTOL, Tenn. — Chase Elliott and the No. 9 NAPA Auto Parts team were able to fight their way to an eighth-place finish Sunday evening in the Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway.
As NASCAR returned to regular concrete racing at Bristol, Elliott showed persistence throughout the weekend. The Dawsonville, Georgia native did not show very much raw speed in Practice 1, placing 16th with his fastest lap time being 0.357 seconds behind pole sitter Ryan Blaney after running 29 laps.
Elliott and crew chief Alan Gustafson were able to hone in the No. 9 car after seeing that tire wear was going to be a notable issue at the 0.5333-mile short track. Elliott managed to qualify in the third position to start the race on Sunday afternoon. After the drop of the green flag, the Hendrick Motorsports driver was able to comfortably stay inside of the top-five for the first part of the 125-lap first stage.
With 38 laps complete, Elliott informed his team how he felt about his tires and what the track was doing to them. “The marbles are freaking wild. I’ve never seen anything like that in my time.”
Even with tire wear becoming more extensive than he had seen in his previous eight seasons in the Cup Series, Elliott was able to pass Denny Hamlin (No. 11) and Ryan Blaney (No. 12) on Lap 61 to lead Hendrick Motorsport’s 80,000th lap on Lap 62. With 45 laps to go in Stage 1, Elliott fell back to the third position following a restart. In those remaining 45 laps, the 28-year-old slipped back to a 15th-place stage finish.
Chase Elliott leads laps at Bristol Motor Speedway. (Photo: Josh James | The Podium Finish)
On Lap 188 of the 500-lap race, Elliott had drifted back to 19th, with tire management still being the prominent issue of the day. In the remaining 63 laps of the second stage, Elliott continued to slip back even further to a 26th-place stage finish. With just over 250 laps left in the race, there was still plenty of time for the No. 9 team to drive back up through the field.
While Elliott did not lead any more laps, he was able to race his way back up to 18th place with 94 laps left in the race. During the last push of the race, the 2020 Cup Series champion was able to gain 10 more spots to land his eighth-place finish. After the race, Elliott considered the race as a whole.
“It’s a better race than we’ve had here,” Elliott noted. “It was pretty fun from my seat.”
“Normally, you could just bury the car into the corner so far and you don’t ever really get beat by guys with tires that bad,” Elliott added. “But you could just fall off a cliff there with the way that was. It was like racing at a really old, worn out short track. It was a lot of fun. I think there was probably a little better balance somewhere up there, but I had a good time.”
