MARTINSVILLE, Va. – Chase Elliott drove his guts out during Sunday’s STP 500 at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway but came up .0594-seconds short of his fourth career Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series victory.
Brad Keselowski and Team Penske continued their early season domination at the 0.526-mile paperclip – but Elliott made Keselowski work for it – especially after the Hendrick Motorsports driver passed Keselowski just after a restart at Lap 325 where Elliott led the field until the next caution flag.
Keselowski assumed control of the race off pit road, but Elliott refused to go down without a fight.
Following the last restart, Elliott made a daring move on the outside to pass Kyle Busch at Lap 457. Elliott’s No. 9 NAPA Auto Parts Chevrolet Camaro was able to catch Keselowski’s Ford but with the cars nearly equal in speed, Elliott came up short.
“It’s really tough,” said Elliott on losing the race. “Our NAPA Camaro was good. I felt like we were about as even with him as we could be. There was a little I felt like when he did get the lead, there was a little advantage to being out front, being able to work traffic your way and kind of play off it and whatnot.”
In the closing laps, Elliott changed his line around the race track and while he made gains on his small deficit to Keselowski, it wasn’t enough to swipe the lead from Keselowski.
“I tried to move up there at the end, and I don’t know if I could have got to him,” added Elliott. “Maybe if I moved up a little sooner maybe. But I tried to get to him there in 3. I was pretty well content on moving him out of the way. But maybe next time.”
By far, Sunday was the best overall performance from the No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports camp this season.
Before Martinsville, Elliott could only produce a season-high ninth-place run at Las Vegas (Nev.) Motor Speedway – but with momentum on his side, the Dawsonville, Ga. native heads to Texas Motor Speedway looking to put Chevrolet into Victory Lane for the first time in 2019.
From a manufacturer standpoint, Chevrolet continues to search for speed. Elliott was the lone Chevrolet inside the top-10 ahead of Austin Dillon who finished 11th.
Outside of Elliott, Hendrick Motorsports struggled. Bowman clung to a top-15 finish with 14th, while William Byron suffered from his post-qualifying penalty and finished 22nd. Seven-time Cup champion Jimmie Johnson continues to struggle early into the season and managed just a 24th place finish, two laps in the arrears.
Elliott jumped three spots in the point standings from 12th to ninth heading to Texas Motor Speedway on March 31.
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
