{"id":56079,"date":"2026-02-15T18:50:48","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T00:50:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=56079"},"modified":"2026-02-15T20:10:20","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T02:10:20","slug":"shot-at-history-slips-away-for-elliott-keselowski-in-daytona-500-chaos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/15\/shot-at-history-slips-away-for-elliott-keselowski-in-daytona-500-chaos\/","title":{"rendered":"Shot at history slips away for Elliott, Keselowski in DAYTONA 500 chaos"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service<\/em><\/p>\n

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. \u2013 Two former NASCAR Cup Series champions took the white flag signaling one lap to-go in Sunday\u2019s 68th DAYTONA 500 in position to perhaps at last add DAYTONA 500 champion to their already accomplished racing resumes.<\/p>\n

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Chase Elliott, driver of the #9 NAPA Auto Parts Chevrolet, and Chase Briscoe, driver of the #19 Bass Pro Shops Toyota, llduring the NASCAR Cup Series Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway on February 15, 2026 in Daytona Beach, Florida. (Photo by Sean Gardner\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

And in a blink of an eye, both Chase Elliott and Brad Keselowski were instead collected in a multi-car crash and finished the day at the Daytona International Speedway AdventHealth Medical Center in the infield instead of the track\u2019s famous Victory Lane. Both of them were okay physically but frustrated having to salvage top-five finishes in the biggest race of the season – the major Crown Jewel event that has \u201cjust\u201d eluded them \u2013 10 times for Elliott and now 17 times for Keselowski.<\/p>\n

Elliott\u2019s No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet patiently and methodically moved forward in the closing laps, avoiding several big multi-car accidents in the second half of the race to put himself in position to make a run at NASCAR\u2019s most celebrated trophy.<\/p>\n

While maintaining a spot in the lead pack of cars \u2013 even leading a lap with five laps to go – the 2020 series champ was collected in a multi-car accident about 100 yards from the checkered flag. Riley Herbst\u2019s No. 35 23XI Racing Toyota barely clipped Elliott\u2019s Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet but was enough to collect other cars and launch Elliott\u2019s car across Daytona\u2019s famed finish line.<\/p>\n

It was good enough for a fourth-place finish, Elliott\u2019s third top-10 and best work in the DAYTONA 500 since a runner-up effort in 2021.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously looking back, you could run it through your mind a thousand times, do you do something different — I feel like if I had thrown a double block on the 45 [race winner Tyler Reddick], probably would have just crashed us at that point in time,” Elliott said of the front pack\u2019s frantic bob-and-weave toward the checkered flag.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt like you had to pick your battles. I thought maybe if somebody would pick me up on the top, you might have one more run to the line, but unfortunately ended up getting turned around.<\/p>\n

\u201cAppreciate all the effort. \u2026thought we had a good Speedweeks down here. Obviously hate to — this really sucks to be that close and come off Turn 4 with the lead and not finish it off.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut that’s part of this event, and unfortunately we were on the bad end of it today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Keselowski came into the race already in recovery from a broken leg he suffered in an offseason incident at a ski resort. Sunday night he came out of the Infield Care Center leaning on the cane he\u2019s used all weekend – and aggravated at the field\u2019s aggression on that final run to the checkered as well.<\/p>\n

Although he did not lead a lap Sunday, the 2012 series champion put himself in position to be in contention in the closing laps and was visibly frustrated by the turn of events and also being collected in the multi-accident triggered by Herbst.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of chaos,” Keselowski said of the final push.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe 35 [Herbst] just wrecked me out of nowhere for no reason. That was one of the dumbest things I\u2019ve seen. He had no chance of blocking my run. I had a huge run. I don\u2019t know if I could have gotten the 45 (race winner Tyler Reddick) or the 47 (runner-up, Ricky Stenhouse Jr.)\u00a0 but I would have liked to have found out because my run was coming fast and the 35 just wrecked us and himself.<\/p>\n

\u201cPretty stupid!” he added, noting that Herbst block wasn\u2019t just one lane, but three lanes coming up from the bottom of the track. \u201cTo wreck yourself and everybody else is just stupid. Very, very stupid.”<\/p>\n

\u201cTore up the 9 (Elliott), tore up the 22 (Logano), a bunch of cars that didn’t deserve to be wrecked, so that was a big bummer and really stupid,” Keselowski added of the finish. \u201cStill a decent day for us to come home with a top-five and to be competitive and have a shot to win.”<\/p>\n

As for his injury, Keselowski said, he felt \u201cgreat\u201d and \u201ccouldn\u2019t feel it\u201d while in the car and was actually \u2013 on some level \u2013 heartened that it was tested with the crash.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt really good in the car and felt really good getting through the crash,” Keselowski said. \u201cI\u2019m proud to make it this far. A few weeks ago, I didn\u2019t know if I\u2019d be able to run this race. To get to run the race and have an opportunity to win it feels pretty good, just disappointed not to bring it home.\u201d<\/p>\n

The fifth-place showing for Keselowski was his third top-five in 17 career DAYTONA 500 starts and first since a third-place showing in 2014 after being collected in accidents in six of the last 10 DAYTONA 500s.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt good about just being in position, for sure,” he said. \u201cAt the end it\u2019s a roll of the dice and who\u2019s going to making good moves or bad moves and the dice didn\u2019t roll our way.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. \u2013 Two former NASCAR Cup Series champions took the white flag signaling one lap to-go in Sunday\u2019s 68th DAYTONA 500 in position to perhaps at last add DAYTONA 500 champion to their already accomplished racing resumes. And in a blink of an eye, both Chase Elliott […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":676,"featured_media":56065,"comment_status":"closed","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":[79,500,42,287,16],"class_list":["post-56079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-brad-keselowski","tag-chase-elliott","tag-daytona-500","tag-daytona-international-speedway","tag-nascar"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/GettyImages-2261819811-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1707&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-eAv","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/676"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56079"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56079\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56082,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56079\/revisions\/56082"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}