The race was a blur of yellow with all those restarts, but when it finally wrapped up, Chase Elliott was the one celebrating in victory lane. This marked Elliott’s 19th Cup win and his first since roaring to victory at Talladega back in October 2022. It was also his first top-5 finish of the season, a big sigh of relief for both his fans and his crew.

He edged out Ross Chastain in the next-to-last lap, right before Chastain got tangled and crashed, following a bump from William Byron on the final stretch. It’s been a long drought for Elliott, who last tasted victory 42 races ago. For Elliott and his supporters, this win was definitely a huge lift.

The drought ends for NASCAR’s fan-favorite

Sharing the emotion, Elliott, during his post-race interview, said, “It couldn’t feel any better. First off, thanks, everybody. They came out today. Hooters has been a partner of ours for a number of years now and it’s been a dream of mine to pay respect to the late Alan Kulwicki and driving this car to a victory and being able to… Do a Polish victory lap and… Just uh really crazy how things you know, a painful circle there, and that moment it was pretty emotional for me. He beat Dad back in the day and here we are sharing his sponsor and having an opportunity to win today.”

However, he did call Texas “sketchy” while talking about the intensity he felt during the race. “Oh, it’s just crazy that this place is just so… You know, so sketchy,“ the driver stated. Well, from what we could see, it was definitely an intense one. The spin of Ricky Stenhouse Jr in Turn 2 at Lap 254 cranked up the intensity, leading to a restart with just seven laps left. Then, Kyle Larson took a spin in the same turn during the restart, which brought us to a nail-biter with just two laps to go.

Chase Elliott was really flying out there. Kicking off from 24th, he surged to 7th by the end of Stage 1. Nearing the race’s end, he was neck and neck with Denny Hamlin, bouncing between first and second. At the restart, Elliott and Hamlin were side by side, but Hamlin spun out in Turn 4 and smashed into the outside SAFER barrier. Chase Elliott, caught up in the moment but not at fault for Hamlin’s crash, still felt compelled to apologize, even though he wasn’t directly involved.

Chase Elliott apologizes to Denny Hamlin for the crash during Green White Checkered Battle

The race heated up with a series of late restarts, setting the stage for a showdown between Chase Elliott and Denny Hamlin. Hamlin briefly took the lead, but Elliott fought back hard, diving inside at Turn 3 and managing to get ahead. In the mix, Hamlin’s car lost grip, slid sideways, and slammed into the barriers.

Elliott, unsure of the specifics, commented post-race, “I haven’t seen a replay of… you know, Denny and us. I don’t really know. I didn’t feel like I did anything. Super… crazy. They’re any more than anybody’s ever done to me. Just had to run forward and I want to look at it. I didn’t feel like I did anything to crash him. I think just… the circumstances, but nonetheless, apologies to him if so…”

On the flip side, Hamlin clarified that Elliott wasn’t to blame. “I got loose up in Turn 3, something I’ve been fighting really kind of all day and then when you got to push it the most on a green-white-checkered,” Hamlin explained, credited with a 30th place finish officially. “I knew that the likely scenario is that I wasn’t going to make it out of the corner with as much speed as I was carrying. I’m trying to go for the win, so I just got loose and spun out,” #11 shared after finishing 30th.

He respected the race with Elliott, attributing the crash to a tricky combination of a bad aerodynamic spot and a car that struggled in the high lane all day.