By Aaron Bearden

A breakdown of Sunday’s AutoTrader EchoPark Automotive 400 at Texas Motor Speedway, the ninth race of the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series season.

Main Takeaway

You hear that noise? 

You know what that means. Chase Elliott is back. 

Elliott snuck ahead of leader Denny Hamlin before a caution on a late restart and survived two overtime restarts to claim Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Texas Motor Speedway. 

The result was Elliott’s first win in 42 races, ending a slump that dated back to October 2022 at Talladega. It had been a dour stretch that included an off-track injury, a one-race suspension for a Coca-Cola 600 crash with Hamlin and Elliott’s first Cup season without a playoff appearance. 

He celebrated the occasion in style. Elliott’s win was the first victory for a car in Hooter’s colors since the late Alan Kulwicki’s final victory at Pocono Raceway on June 14, 1992. The Georgian paid homage to Kulwicki by completing the celebration he popularized – a Polish victory lap. 

 

It was a fitting ending, Elliott waving to stands filled with many of his fans. The son of 16-time NASCAR Most Popular Driver winner Bill Elliott, Chase has won the award in each of the past six years, making this a popular result for NASCAR and many of its spectators.

It was also cathartic for Elliott and his No. 9 team. 

“This journey and everything about today is really a credit to the guys that sit in our meetings on Monday mornings in the 9 room,” Elliott said. “That starts with (crew chief Alan Gustafson). “It’s really easy when things go bad to jump ship, go do something different, for those guys to go elsewhere. It just is. It happens a lot.

“It’s been an extremely important thing to me, and fortunately to our entire group, to try to climb this mountain again together and try to get back to where we need to be as a group.

“We’re not all together, but a lot of us are still there that have been on our team for most of my nine years. That’s pretty special.”

The road to victory lane wasn’t easy. Texas proved treacherous for the Cup field on Sunday. Numerous drivers crashed battling for the win, including Hamlin. Elliott himself said the track “is so sketchy” after his win. 

But the 2020 Cup champ managed the conditions well and didn’t put a wheel wrong while those around him erred. Once he cleared Ross Chastain on the final restart, Elliott was free to drive off to his first victory in 18 months.

Now he’s back in the playoffs with a win and up to fourth in the standings. 

Which begs the question – is Elliott back? 

“Is Chase Elliott back? Well, I would say outside of today, let’s look at the whole season,” Hendrick Motorsports President and General Manager Jeff Andrews said. “I think that’s a bigger picture than what that team pulled off today.

“We don’t as a company think Chase Elliott has ever been gone. We had some things to work on with the team, the support we were giving them. As I said before, he and Alan spent a lot of time this winter on rebuilding that team, putting the right folks in that team, people that believed as much in that team as Alan and Chase did.

“I think when you get all the folks pulling together and rowing the boat in one direction, you start to see the results like we’ve had so far with that team in 2024.

“Yeah, certainly Chase is back today. I think the bigger picture is what we’ve seen in 2024 is exactly the momentum we want to see built with that team. They’re headed in a good direction. Now have an opportunity in the Playoffs. We’re going to keep working as an organization to get even stronger than where we’re at now.” 

Good, Bad and Ugly

Good (but a little Ugly): Brad Keselowski salvages a tough day

Brad Keselowski entered Sunday as an afterthought. He’d qualified 22nd, had been running worse than in 2023 and was in a Ford that’s been struggling for speed across the board with its Mustang Dark Horse. 

But a savvy drive and some overtime luck landed the Michigander with his best non-superspeedway result for RFK Racing. 

After keeping his car clean in the attrition-filled event, Keselowski diced his way through the field over Sunday’s final laps – benefitting from 18-lap-fresher tires that helped him get to third before they evened out with the leaders. 

The 2012 Cup champion didn’t have the pace to challenge for the win as the race went to overtime. But he dodged crashes involving Hamlin, Ross Chastain and William Byron to secure a second-place result. 

In theory the run was something to celebrate. It helped lift Keselowski to 17th in the standings and was seemingly the best his No. 6 team could have managed on the day. But the continued lack of pace in his cars left the driver-owner frustrated afterward. 

“Honestly, I’m more frustrated than anything because I feel like we have a great team and we don’t have the speed to go with it,” Keselowski said. “We’re doing all we can do to overcome that.

“The driver in me is frustrated because I feel like these are races I’m good enough to win, and we don’t have the speed to do it. Only reason I am mad as hell is it’s my fault for not making the cars faster.

“Still proud of the team that we have, the pit stops, strategy, execution to put ourselves in position to get a finish we probably didn’t deserve but earned with some kind of never-give-up spirit.” 

Keselowski and Chris Buescher are once again playoff contenders due to the pair’s consistency. Buescher sits 13th in the standings and Keselowski is one point out of the provisional playoff grid in 17th. But as long as their cars lack speed, there’s going to be frustration in the RFK Racing camp. 

Ugly (but Good for an unpredictable race): Wrecks aplenty

Sixteen cautions. 

There were sixteen cautions on Sunday afternoon. That tied Texas’ caution record from 2022, but did so with 100 fewer scheduled miles. 

The race started relatively calm, with a lone Jimmie Johnson spin slowing the field in the opening stage. But calamity began in Stage 2, which saw five crashes that took out potential contenders like Christopher Bell, Alex Bowman and Michael McDowell.

A treacherous Texas surface offered no margin for error – particularly when the aggression ramped up in battles up front. McDowell and Hamlin both spun trying to take the lead. 

For Hamlin the crash was a worthwhile sacrifice. With multiple victories already assuring him a spot in the playoffs, the Joe Gibbs Racing veteran took the risk to chase a win.

“I knew (what) the likely scenario (was),” Hamlin said. “I wasn’t going to make it out of the corner with as much speed as I was carrying. (I was) trying to go for the win with our Yahoo Camry – got loose and spun out.” 

“So I just got loose and spun out.”

McDowell’s crash was of greater consequence. The two-time Cup winner is chasing a playoff spot on points and dropped 66 points below the cutline with his crash. 

“I just got in those bumps (in Turn 4). and the car got loose and took off,” McDowell said. “Track position was really important today and I had the opportunity to take the lead and take control of the race. I just didn’t make it stick. Unfortunate but we had a really fast car today.”

Stage 3 was slowed eight times for caution, including a crash on the final lap involving Chastain and Byron. The duo were racing for second when contact from Byron sent Chastain spinning into the outside wall. 

“I just had a big run,” Byron said. “Ross and I race really well, and I didn’t want to wreck him there, but he blocked me late. … It’s racing at the end, I was already there and, unfortunately, we made enough contact to where it got him squirrelly and it happened. 

“I hate that that happened, but it’s the last lap and I had the run. So I am going to just take the run.” 

Bad: Kyle Larson’s wheely bad day

Kyle Larson started Sunday’s race from the pole and dominated early on. It seemed like his race to lose. 

Then Larson’s wheel came rolling off. 

The Californian was leading under caution on Lap 117 when the right-rear wheel fell off his No. 5 Chevrolet. It’s an incident that’s occurred a few times in the Next Gen era – a consequence of moving to single-nut wheels. He’d reported feeling like the tire was going flat before it ultimately came off. 

Larson was lucky to have the lost wheel occur during a caution instead of under green, but he never fully recovered from the setback. NASCAR penalized the 2021 Cup champ two laps. He rallied to get back on the lead lap, but struggled to move forward and spun in the final stage. 

When the checkered flag flew, Larson sat 21st. FOX Sports‘ Bob Pockrass caught up with him afterward. 

Good: Strong results for struggling teams

One key benefit of an attrition-filled race is the opportunity it provides teams that can stay out of trouble to the end. 

Numerous drivers benefitted from the myriad crashes to secure strong results in Texas. 

First among them was Daniel Suarez. The Atlanta Motor Speedway winner hadn’t earned another top-10 in the seven races surrounding that memorable victory. But he made the most of Sunday’s race to snag a fifth-place finish for Trackhouse Racing. 

Chase Briscoe kept his consistent 2024 rolling with a sixth-place effort. It was Briscoe’s fifth top-15 finish in the past six races, helping the Hoosier reverse a freefall that began in 2023.

Part-timer Austin Hill was unlucky, finishing last on the day with steering issues. But Richard Childress Racing placed both of its full-time drivers in the top-10. Austin Dillon earned a much-needed eighth-place finish – his best result since the 2023 Bristol Dirt Race – with Kyle Busch following in ninth. 

Cup rookie Carson Hocevar followed the pair in 10th to score his first top-10 in NASCAR’s premier division. Hocevar and Busch were involved in an accident during Stage 2, but avoided damage and rallied to salvage their days. 

Ty Dillon earned his best non-superspeedway result since 2022 for Kaulig Racing in 16th. Teammate Daniel Hemric came home 20th to end a stretch of five races where he had an average finish of 30.2. 

These were all solid results for teams that needed them. Whether they can parlay them into future success remains to be seen. 

Notes

  • Hendrick Motorsports and Joe Gibbs Racing are now up to eight wins in nine races to open the year. NASCAR is still far from Formula 1, but the haves are dominating the have-nots so far in 2024.
  • Tyler Reddick was in contention for the win again on Sunday, but execution continues to keep the No. 45 team from victory lane. A slow pit stop and failed key restart in the final stage relegated Reddick to fourth at day’s end.
  • Jimmie Johnson has continually struggled in his limited starts with the Next Gen car. That didn’t change in Texas – Johnson spun early and struggled to move forward. But the seven-time champion did notch his first lead-lap finish in the car, coming home 29th at day’s end.

  • Elliott’s win elicited a surprising stat. Not only was it his first intermediate track victory in the Next Gen car – it was his first top-five at any 1.5-mile track since the era began in 2022.
  • Tyler Reddick is up to four-consecutive finishes in the top-10, the best streak of his career. He’d previously managed three in a row on six occasions.
  • Nine race into the 2024 season, Chase Briscoe is quietly manufacturing the best year of his Cup career. Briscoe has four top-10s in nine races, leaving him on pace to top his personal best 10 from 2022. The Hoosier’s 14.6 average finish is nearly six spots better than last year and 2.7 positions better than 2022 as well. Ford is struggling, but the No. 14 team’s making the most of it.
  • This isn’t reflected in the standings because of his early 35-point penalty, but Ryan Preece is quietly running better than last year, too. Preece’s 19.0 average finish to date is the best of his Cup career thus far. Without the penalty he’d be 20th in points. That’s not where he wants to be, but it is encouraging progress for the No. 41 team.

Race Results

  1. Chase Elliott
  2. Brad Keselowski
  3. William Byron
  4. Tyler Reddick
  5. Daniel Suarez
  6. Chase Briscoe
  7. Bubba Wallace
  8. Austin Dillon
  9. Kyle Busch
  10. Carson Hocevar
  11. Joey Logano
  12. Ryan Preece
  13. Ty Gibbs
  14. Martin Truex Jr.
  15. Chris Buescher
  16. Ty Dillon
  17. Christopher Bell
  18. Noah Gragson
  19. Erik Jones
  20. Daniel Hemric
  21. Kyle Larson
  22. Corey LaJoie
  23. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
  24. Justin Haley
  25. Austin Cindric
  26. Zane Smith
  27. Kaz Grala
  28. Harrison Burton
  29. Jimmie Johnson
  30. Denny Hamlin
  31. Todd Gilliland
  32. Ross Chastain
  33. Ryan Blaney
  34. John Hunter Nemechek
  35. Michael McDowell
  36. Josh Berry
  37. Alex Bowman
  38. Austin Hill

Stage 1

  1. Kyle Larson
  2. Christopher Bell
  3. Denny Hamlin
  4. Tyler Reddick
  5. Chase Briscoe
  6. Ryan Blaney
  7. Chase Elliott
  8. Michael McDowell
  9. William Byron
  10. Bubba Wallace

Stage 2

  1. Ross Chastain
  2. Bubba Wallace
  3. Ryan Blaney
  4. Erik Jones
  5. Chase Briscoe
  6. Brad Keselowski
  7. Harrison Burton
  8. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
  9. Ty Gibbs
  10. Chase Elliott

–

To see the current playoff picture, check out our weekly Playoff Points update. 

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Brad Keselowski Chase Elliott Kyle Larson