Chase Elliott won Sunday’s NASCAR Cup race at Atlanta Motor Speedway, but only after contact with Corey LaJoie on the last lap triggered a wreck that resulted in the race ending under caution.
The wreck began when LaJoie, running in second after the white flag, attempted to initiate a pass on the outside of Elliott in Turns 1-2. Elliott moved up to block and touched LaJoie’s No. 7 Chevrolet.
The contact was enough to send LaJoie into the outside wall and start a multi-car wreck.
Elliott, who led 96 laps and swept every stage of the race, crossed under the dual checkered and caution flags ahead of Ross Chastain, Austin Cindric, Erik Jones and Ryan Blaney.
Click here for the race results.
The win is the first for the Dawsonville, Georgia-native. He’s now only the second Georgia native to win at Atlanta Motor Speedway, joining his father Bill Elliott.
“Those (father-son accomplishments) are more than special,” Elliott said. “I’m not sure that my dreams really grasped something like that when I was a kid. I’m not sure I got far enough as a kid to even think about joining dad as a champion, or joining dad on the father-son list to win.”
The Hendrick Motorsports driver also completed a sweep of the weekend for Georgia natives after Austin Hill won Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race.
“To win at your home track is a really big deal for any race car driver,” Elliott told NBC Sports as fans cheered on from the grandstands. “I’ve watched a lot of guys do it over the years. Jimmie (Johnson) out in California. We’ve never really had a good run here. Felt like today was a great opportunity for us.
“But just so proud. Obviously, this is home for me. Home to a lot of great fans who made a lot of noise today. Hope for NAPA right down the road in Atlanta. … I’m not sure we’ve ever had a superspeedway car that good. If we did, I probably wrecked it down at Daytona.”
Elliott’s win comes following a victory at Nashville Superspeedway two weeks ago and and a runner-up at Road America in Wisconsin after he was passed by Tyler Reddick with 17 laps to go. Elliott now has a 47-point lead in the point standings over Blaney.
“What a few weeks it’s been. I feel like I gave one away last week,” Elliott said. “To come back and put on a performance like that, I’m really proud of that.”
Like Hill the day before, Elliott’s early racing days included driving Bandoleros on the quarter-mile track located on Atlanta’s frontstretch.
“The big track just seemed so out of reach then, like it wasn’t even real,” Elliott said. “To be here and have a day like we had today is incredible.”
Elliott then shared his side of the last-lap incident.
“I knew (LaJoie) was going to have a big run,” Elliott said. “I didn’t really want to give him the bottom. I tried to give him one good, aggressive block. Felt like I had enough room to give him a second one and he was right there on the right side of my back bumper. … Hate that I tore up some cars. But I don’t know what you do, either go for the win or you don’t. I’m going to choose Option A every day of the week.”
For LaJoie, who wound up scored in 21st, it was tough ending to arguably his best chance yet to win a NASCAR Cup race in 183 career starts.
The Spire Motorsports driver led a career-high 19 laps.
“Closest I’ve ever been, for sure, that was fun,” LaJoie told NBC Sports. “It was nice to have that thing out in the wind for once. I made my move, it didn’t work out, he made a good block and the siren is ringing in Dawsonville.”
The race ended in a four-lap sprint following a wreck between Danny Hamlin, Joey Logano and Christopher Bell with seven laps to go.
LaJoie restarted on the front row with Martin Truex Jr.
“I was going to school, that was the first time I’ve been leading on a restart at one of the superspeedway-style race tracks,” LaJoie said. “How much you have to drag back, timing runs, covering lanes, it was all new to me.”
Chastain finished second despite being involved in two wrecks throughout the race, arguably starting both.
The first came on Lap 91, while Chastain was running up front behind Truex. Truex appeared to spin off Chastain’s nose, and caused a multi-car car pile up. The hardest impact saw Austin Dillon plow into the outside wall. He wasn’t harmed and was the only car eliminated in the incident.
“Looked like we were a causality of Ross Chastain, again,” Dillon told NBC Sports. “I told myself ‘we’re gonna race hard all day,’ wasn’t one of those things that I wanted to ride in the back and be there at the end, but when you got guys like (Chastain) out there wrecking half the field, you might as well actually take a different strategy sometimes.”
Dillon later added, “It just seems like every week, he’s a part of something.”
Martin Truex Jr. spins, collecting Austin Dillon, Joey Logano and many more. #NASCAR
— NASCAR on NBC (@NASCARonNBC) July 10, 2022
📺 : @USA_Network pic.twitter.com/rR7raVXNDu
The second incident came with 14 laps left in the 260-lap race.
Chastain, who last month was involved in a high-profile run-in with Hamlin at Gateway, moved up the track in Turn 4 and tagged Hamlin’s left rear.
That sent Hamlin into a spin that also wound up collecting Brad Keselowski. After his wreck with Bell and Logano, Hamlin finished 25th.
With a damaged No. 1 car, Chastain wound up with his 10th top 10 of the season and his fifth in a row.
“I had damage and I overestimated how fast I could go into the corner with the draft and I ran into him,” Chastain said. “This one is so much different (from Gateway), because I had so much damage. Ya’ll know i would take full responsibility if I just ran into him. I had so much damage, I was so much tighter. … I just couldn’t carry the throttle like I could earlier. I still lifted some, but it wasn’t enough.”