Elliott Caught Up in Multi-Car Incident Early at Talladega
- Chase Elliott and the No. 9 NAPA Auto Parts team qualified 25th for Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series playoff race at Talladega Superspeedway.
- Not long after the first round of green-flag pit stops, Elliott was collected in a multi-car incident on lap 52 that ended his day early.
- With one race left in the Round of 8, Elliott sits eighth in the standings, 62 points below the cutline. He will need to win next weekend’s race at Martinsville Speedway to advance to the Championship 4.
Chase Elliott and the No. 9 NAPA Auto Parts team qualified 25th for Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series playoff race at Talladega Superspeedway. The intensity was on from the start of the race, with the field running three-wide by the end of the first lap. Elliott strategically ran near the back of the pack early in stage one but had advanced up inside the top 20 before the first round of green-flag pit stops got underway on lap 43. The 29-year-old driver visited pit road on lap 47 for a fuel-only stop. With less than 10 laps to go in stage one, Elliott got collected in a multi-car incident that started at the front of the field. He brought the No. 9 NAPA Auto Parts Chevrolet to pit road for repairs, but the damage was too severe to continue in the race. Elliott was relegated to a 40th-place finish.
“I saw someone get turned sideways,” Elliott said after the incident. “I was trying to get slowed up like normal. I ended up getting turned sideways into some other cars, and then they slid back into me. I’m not really sure… I hate it. I felt like we had ourselves in a good spot before the pit cycle. I didn’t feel like we executed the cycle very well and that put us back in the back again. I’m not sure if that would have helped us miss the wreck or not. Obviously, all of that is very circumstantial, but nonetheless, it is what it is. I can’t change it now, so we’re just all eyes on Martinsville (Speedway) and we’ll try to go there and get a win.”
With just one race remaining in the Round of 8, Elliott sits eighth in the playoff standings, 62 points below the cutline. He will need to win next weekend’s race at Martinsville Speedway to advance to the Championship 4.
Start / Finish: 25 / 40
Points Standing / Total: 8th / -62 below cutline
Next Race: Sunday, Oct. 26, Martinsville Speedway
How to Watch or Listen: 2:00 p.m. ET on NBC, SiriusXM or MRN
NAPA: @NAPARacing
Chase Elliott: @ChaseElliott
Hendrick Motorsports: @TeamHendrick
No. 9 Team: @Hendrick9Team
Hendrick Motorsports View All
Founded by Rick Hendrick in 1984, Hendrick Motorsports is the winningest team in NASCAR Cup Series history. At the sport’s premier level, the organization holds the all-time records in every major statistical category, including championships (15), points-paying race victories (320) and laps led (more than 85,000). It has earned at least one race win in a record 41 different seasons, including an active streak of 40 in a row (1986-2025). Headquartered on more than 150 acres in Concord, North Carolina, the team fields four full-time Chevrolet entries in the NASCAR Cup Series, including the No. 9 NAPA Auto Parts Chevrolet driven by 2020 champion Chase Elliott.