FORT WORTH, Texas.: Hendrick Motorsports’ Chase Elliott Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series championship hopes are relying on a win next Sunday at ISM (Ariz.) Raceway after he wrecked out on Lap 9 of Sunday’s AAA Texas 500 at Texas Motor Speedway.
The Dawsonville, Ga. native started 14th and was running in the middle lane of Turn 2 when his No. 9 NAPA Auto Parts Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 got loose and slammed into the outside wall. The driver immediately apologized to his team for the crash, insisting the car broke loose and he tried to recover but was unsuccessful.
Elliott’s team spent five minutes, 40 seconds on pit road to repair his car but was able to make minimum speed when the race resumed.
Elliott fought his extremely ill-handling car and throughout the remaining 325 laps was able to pick up eight positions to finish 32nd, 22 laps in the arrears to winner Kevin Harvick.
“I made a mistake, got loose and crashed,” said Elliott. “I really hate that happened. Obviously, it’s not good and not what you’re looking for. It’s just my mistake and there’s really no excuse for it. It’s just all eyes on Phoenix.”
Finishing 36th at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway last weekend fighting mechanical gremlins, Elliott has his worst stretch of back-to-back races since finishing 29th at New Hampshire Motor Speedway and 38th at Pocono (Pa.) Raceway in late July.
Entering Sunday’s second race of the semi-final round last on the Playoff grid, 44 points behind the cutoff spot, the 23-year-old now finds himself in a deeper hole, now 78 points out of fourth triggering a must-win situation in the penultimate Cup race of the season.
“Obviously, today was very self-inflicted,” added Elliott. “I made a mistake that there’s really no excuse for and that’s what you get. You make mistakes, you put yourself in a bad position and that was all on me today. I hate that it happened, but it did, and we’ll just go onto Phoenix and try to get a win out there.”
Earlier this year in Phoenix, Elliott qualified second but finished 14th. His best finish in the fall race at the 1.0-mile track is a runner-up effort to Matt Kenseth in 2017.
Despite the rough patch over the last two weeks, Elliott says he looks forward to getting to Phoenix and getting down to business.
“I feel a lot better about it than I did today. So, I look forward to getting out there.”
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
