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Chase Elliott Wins at COTA, Maintains his Road Course King Status

Published 05/24/2021, 4:06 PM EDT

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USA Today via Reuters

At the Circuit of The Americas, Chase Elliott emerged victorious in the rain-interrupted race. In the process, multiple things occurred on that Sunday afternoon.

First and foremost, Elliott became the 11th different winner in the NASCAR Cup Series. In addition to that, he had the honor of being the inaugural winner at the Circuit of The Americas.

Additionally, he won the race on Chevrolet’s 800th career race in the Cup Series. He also maintained his reputation as a road course specialist.

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Finally, he helped Hendrick Motorsports become the second team to have all drivers record at least one win. The only other team to achieve this is, Team Penske, with Ryan Blaney, Joey Logano, and Brad Keselowski.

Without a doubt, Elliott was absolutely delighted to win at Texas. Though he would have preferred to see out the race in its entirety.

As it turned out, the NASCAR officials red-flagged the race due to heavy rain and did not resume it once again. Nevertheless, Chase Elliott was declared the winner and notched his 6th road course win.

How did Chase Elliott perform in the race?

Admittedly, Sunday’s race began on a damp racetrack that was drying steadily. However, there were intermittent showers and soon there was a massive downpour towards the latter stages of the race.

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This continued for a while and the conditions became quite dicey. Owing to the increase in standing water and poor visibility on the back straight, there were two major crashes.

USA Today via Reuters

The first victim was Christopher Bell, who plowed into the back of Ryan Blaney. Later on, in a far scarier accident, Bubba Wallace literally drove underneath Kevin Harvick’s car. A similar accident happened to Martin Truex Jr, Michael McDowell, and Cole Custer.

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In the end, Elliott was able to survive the carnage. However, nobody was sure about who would be the next victim. So the NASCAR officials wised up and threw the red flag, ending the race.

WATCH: Chase Elliott, Kyle Busch and Others Get a Taste of Rain in COTA NASCAR Practice

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Written by:

Dhruv George

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Dhruv George is a senior Formula One and NASCAR analyst for EssentiallySports, having authored nearly 12000 articles spanning different sports like F1, NASCAR, Tennis, NFL, and eSports. He graduated with a PG Diploma in Journalism from the Xavier Institute of Communications. Dhruv has also conducted interviews with F1 driver Pierre Gasly and Moto2 rider Tony Arbolino.
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