Chase Elliott’s stars do not seem to be aligned with a good race performance since the past year. In 2023, Elliott’s career trajectory was halted as he incurred a leg injury on a snowboarding venture in Colorado. But even after his mountaineering debacle faded away, Elliott is facing newer challenges this season.

After he barely scraped together a top-ten finish at the tire management Bristol race, COTA threw a new challenge at him. Chase Elliott is a seven-time road track champion, but unique rules at COTA hindered his path. A NASCAR official recently justified the penalty issued to the Hendrick driver.

NASCAR sticks to no-mercy approach to Chase Elliott

The 20-turn, 3.41-mile road course at Circuit of the Americas is pretty technical. Some of the turns are sharp and cutting, giving drivers a hard time staying within the track. As NASCAR implemented track limits in the esses or Turns 3-5, drivers were left fumbling to avoid track penalties. 

The result was officials slapping 20 penalties in the Craftsman Truck Series and 16 in Xfinity. There were comparatively fewer in the Cup race, with four drivers getting penalized. But our own most popular driver of NASCAR ended up being one of them.

Chase Elliott’s Hendrick team attempted to mount a defense. They said the No. 9 driver got loose and missed one of the turns in the esses. Even Elliott suggested showing the higher-ups the data, but to no avail. NASCAR officials rejected the racer’s heartfelt plea, and Elliott finished in 16th place. Recently, NASCAR senior vice president of competition Elton Sawyer drew a parallel to basketball. 

“Obviously, he shortcutted the course. Now, we’re in the season of NCAA basketball…I know some of our fans may not like this analogy…99% of the time, the defender is not trying to foul the shooter…he’s trying to block the shot. But he gets called for a foul. I would say in our situation the past weekend, the drivers were not trying to commit a foul. But the foul was committed, so from the officiating standpoint, you have to call that.”

Yet Sawyer tried to ease tensions. “We don’t want to over-officiate,” he said. “That’s not what we want to do. Again, we don’t need 20, 30 penalties in a race. We don’t need that. So, all of those things will be taken into consideration.”

Even Denny Hamlin called out NASCAR’s flippant attitude and backed Chase Elliott’s stance.

Hamlin demanded ‘common sense’ in COTA rules

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Elton Sawyer said that the restrictions come in the scene where drivers can make gains throughout a lap. Yet if the officials kept drivers on the track through the esses, they would not try extra maneuvers, instead trying to straighten it out. This is the logic Denny Hamlin used on his ‘Actions Detrimental’ podcast. “NASCAR can’t have us running straight through the esses. And that’s what we’d do if we didn’t have track limits.”

He further added: “So, I think that you could just use a rule, and it’s called the common sense rule. And that is that as long as someone does not gain an advantage by cutting the esses to get position maybe on someone on a restart, let the guys — give them a foot. Give them a little buffer zone.”

Besides Denny Hamlin, a huge swathe of NASCAR fans rallied behind Chase Elliott. Hopefully, better fortunes will play out for him in the next races.

Chase Elliott Under Fire as His Entitled Career Sees Him Sway Away From Responsibilities to NASCAR