{"id":22300,"date":"2018-10-09T16:00:10","date_gmt":"2018-10-09T21:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=22300"},"modified":"2018-10-11T05:36:40","modified_gmt":"2018-10-11T10:36:40","slug":"chase-elliott-is-finding-success-at-the-right-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2018\/10\/09\/chase-elliott-is-finding-success-at-the-right-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Chase Elliott is finding success at the right time"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Chase Elliott, driver of the #9 NAPA Auto Parts Chevrolet, celebrates with his team after winning the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Gander Outdoors 400 at Dover International Speedway on October 7, 2018 in Dover, Delaware. (Photo by Jared C. Tilton\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service<\/em><\/p>\n

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – As has been the case in the 2018 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs<\/a>, Sunday\u2019s second round opener at Dover\u2019s Monster Mile proved it ain\u2019t over till it\u2019s over. And again, it was the veterans opening the door for younger drivers to come on in to the Playoff party.<\/p>\n

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Chase Elliott, driver of the #9 NAPA Auto Parts Chevrolet, poses with the winner’s decal in Victory Lane after winning the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Gander Outdoors 400 at Dover International Speedway on October 7, 2018 in Dover, Delaware. (Photo by Brian Lawdermilk\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

Such was the case this weekend as Chase Elliott<\/strong> earned his second career Monster Energy Series victory and an automatic berth into the Round of Eight. Dover (Del.) International Raceway has historically been one of Elliott\u2019s best tracks but his opportunity to win was amplified by a couple late race cautions \u2013 one involving his closest competition \u2013 and also by a great call not to pit during the ensuing yellow flags.<\/p>\n

Bottom line, the 22-year old held off the field for the final 11 laps \u2013 giving him two runner-up finishes and a victory in six Dover starts. As importantly, it gives the driver of the No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet all kinds of momentum with six races left to decide a championship \u2013 and a place already reserved for him in the next round.<\/p>\n

It was the biggest win of Elliott\u2019s young career and a real crowd pleaser.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, huge,” Elliott said of the victory. \u201cI mean, I think it’s nice to be able to know you’re going to move on, but you can’t get complacent in the fact that you are moving on, and you can’t let those points just sit out there and not try to go get them because those bonus points you get for winning or winning a stage or winning a race or whatever, that’s huge, and you need as many as you can get.<\/p>\n

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Chase Elliott, driver of the #9 NAPA Auto Parts Chevrolet, celebrates winning the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Gander Outdoors 400 at Dover International Speedway on October 7, 2018 in Dover, Delaware. (Photo by Chris Trotman\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cOne or two points could be the difference in you making the round of four or not. Just knowing that and not being complacent with the win and trying to go get another one or two before it starts I think is important.\u201d<\/p>\n

The series\u2019 youth movement got a start a week earlier with Elliott\u2019s good friend, 24-year old Ryan Blaney hoisting his own winner\u2019s trophy. He turned a strong run at Charlotte\u2019s new ROVAL race into an automatic place in this round \u2013 and as with Elliott \u2013 was able to take advantage of a late race melee between front-running veterans. Two former champions – Jimmie Johnson and Martin Truex Jr. – crashed out together while vying for the lead only a few turns from the checkered flag. And Blaney blasted through.<\/p>\n

In a season dominated by the \u201cBig 3\u201d \u2013 all former Cup champions Kyle Busch, Kevin Harvick and Truex \u2013 the Playoffs have presented a legitimate youth counter-movement. The Big 3 combined to win 17 of the 26 regular season races, but Busch is the only to win in the four Playoff races to date, scoring his seventh victory of 2018 at Richmond Raceway two weeks ago. Former series champion Brad Keselowski \u2013 Blaney\u2019s Team Penske teammate \u2013 won the Playoff opener at Las Vegas.<\/p>\n

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Chase Elliott, driver of the #9 NAPA Auto Parts Chevrolet, drives during the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Gander Outdoors 400 at Dover International Speedway on October 7, 2018 in Dover, Delaware. (Photo by Jonathan Ferrey\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

And since then, a pair of 20-year olds \u2013 Blaney and Elliott \u2013 have shown the veterans that they are absolutely primed to challenge for this championship too.<\/p>\n

To be fair Harvick, a seven-time winner this season, dominated the day at Dover \u2013 leading a race high 286 laps \u2013 before a pit road issue put him a lap down late in the race. He turned in an inspired comeback and rallied to a sixth-place finish. Truex was also running up front when he was involved in a five-car accident with two laps remaining and finished 15th.<\/p>\n

Harvick has led 340 laps in the Playoffs and was runner-up to Busch at Richmond. His showing Sunday was good enough to give him the championship lead by five points over Busch. Truex has led 264 laps in the four Playoff races, with a best showing of third both at Vegas and Richmond. He is third in the standings, 32-points behind Harvick.<\/p>\n

Blaney\u2019s 11th-place finish at Dover was enough to keep him among the top-eight entering Sunday\u2019s always-exciting 1000Bulbs.com 500 at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway. Elliott\u2019s win is a free pass to the next round and moves him to fifth place in the points standings \u2013 important with such an unpredictable venue as Talladega next up.<\/p>\n

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Chase Elliott, driver of the #9 NAPA Auto Parts Chevrolet, celebrates with a burnout after winning the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Gander Outdoors 400 at Dover International Speedway on October 7, 2018 in Dover, Delaware. (Photo by Chris Trotman\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

Keselowski is the defending winner of the Talladega Playoff race and Penske teammate Joey Logano won at the track earlier this year. Six of the last eight races \u2013 including the last four Talladega Playoff races – have been won by the Team Penske teammates. Keselowski, who scored his first ever Monster Energy Series win at the track in 2009, won the 2014 and 2017 Playoff races there and the spring 2016 race. Logano won the 2015 and 2016 Playoff races as well as this year\u2019s spring 500-miler.<\/p>\n

For his part, Elliott won the pole position at Talladega in his very first start at the track (2016) and finished sixth in that race. He was third behind Logano and Kurt Busch this year and has finished top-16 in his two previous Playoff races there.<\/p>\n

A win at the superspeedway, where Elliott is already a hugely popular driver among the Alabama fans would be a huge accomplishment personally, and a great shot of adrenalin for the whole crowd.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnything is possible, man,” Elliott said of turning his win at Dover into a legitimate title shot going forward. \u201cThere’s no reason at all we can’t make a run at this deal. I thought we made a great run at it last year. <\/p>\n

\u201cPersonally I felt like we went way further than anybody expected us to, a couple laps away from going to Homestead-Miami. No reason why we can’t do that this year and give those guys a run.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – As has been the case in the 2018 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs, Sunday\u2019s second round opener at Dover\u2019s Monster Mile proved it ain\u2019t over till it\u2019s over. And again, it was the veterans opening the door for younger drivers to come on in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":676,"featured_media":22256,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[500,16],"class_list":["post-22300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-chase-elliott","tag-nascar"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/MENCS_WinnerSticker.jpg?fit=4451%2C3081","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-5NG","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/676"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22300"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22300\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22302,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22300\/revisions\/22302"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}