CONCORD, N.C. – It turned out to be a very good weekend for the entire Elliott family.
Not only did Chase Elliott score his third Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series victory of the season Sunday at Charlotte Motor Speedway, but his Hall of Fame father Bill Elliott also picked up a victory of his own on Saturday.
The elder Elliott was in action Saturday at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta, where he drove a 1965 Chevrolet Corvette Roadster owned by Ray Evernham to the overall and American-class victories in the Sasco Sports International/American Challenge sprint race as part of the HSR Fall Classic.
The 1988 NASCAR Cup Series champion then traveled north to Charlotte Motor Speedway, where he got to watch his son win for the first time at the Concord, N.C., facility.
“I wanted to go over there and see it,” the younger Elliott said about his father’s race. “I’ve never made a lap at Road Atlanta. It looks like a really cool place. Definitely neat, not something you would necessarily think would happen. That’s kind of a tough thing to do for sure. But definitely pretty cool and hopefully we can share some more weekends like that moving on.”
– The race winner had no problem taking the blame for the near catastrophic crash on lap 65 that almost ended his hopes of winning Sunday’s Bank of America ROVAL 400.
“I’m not sure you could do something more stupid than that,” Elliott said of the incident. “If there ever is a notebook of things not to do, that should be number one in that book.”
– Playoff contender Denny Hamlin was not pleased with his day Sunday, saying his team simply missed the setup on his No. 11 Toyota Camry after being forced to a backup car as the result of a crash in practice earlier in the weekend.
“Just missed it overall. Having a backup car and having to go to the back and then through that wreck that happened in turn one we got caught in, had to go to the back again,” Hamlin said. “We just couldn’t ever make it back towards the front. Just not enough passing zones. You can’t really get the flow going at this race track, so it’s just kind of – you just wait on the wrecks, you try to avoid them and get the best finish you can.”
– Hendrick Motorsports turned in a strong performance Sunday afternoon on the ROVAL, with all four drivers finishing inside the top-10.
In addition to Elliott and Alex Bowman’s one-two finish, William Byron finished sixth after leading 23 laps from the pole. Jimmie Johnson also survived an accident in turn one during an early restart to finish ninth.
– Kyle Larson’s shot at winning was erased when he was penalized for performance service outside of his pit box, which resulted in a one-lap penalty. The stage one winner managed to get back on the lead lap, but he was never able to get back to the front and finished 13th.
“I felt like Chase (Elliott) was probably the fastest, but I felt like myself and William (Byron) were probably the next best,” Larson said. “We won the first stage and during that pit stop, I didn’t wait on them to pull tape and kind of drug the crew member out of the pit box. So, I got a penalty there, a pretty stiff one. I had to lose a lap, but I got the lucky dog. I thought we were going to be OK and there at the end. We actually had a slow green-flag stop because we had some damage and they couldn’t get the right front out. We ended up 13th, but I felt like we could have easily been in the top-three. Just disappointed that we don’t have the finish to show for how good our car was.”
– Joey Logano was asked if he had any more confidence about racing on the ROVAL after competing on the track twice.
“Confident about what? That we’re all gonna crash? Yes. It’s a mess,” Logano said.