KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Chase Elliott took control of the second elimination race in the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs with 44 laps remaining Sunday at Kansas Speedway and never relinquished his lead to win the Hollywood Casino 400, his third victory of the season.
His second win in three races in the Round of 12, the Hendrick Motorsports driver was already locked into the next round thanks to his checkered flag at Dover International Speedway — along with Aric Almirola, who won last weekend at Talladega Superspeedway.
“It was a great round for us for sure,” Elliott said in victory lane. “We had a great car today. We’re working hard this year; just got to keep it rolling. It’s been a great couple of months.”
Kevin Harvick, Kyle Busch, Joey Logano, Martin Truex Jr., Clint Bowyer and Kurt Busch round out the list of eight drivers still in contention for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series championship going into next weekend’s race at Martinsville Speedway.
Kyle Larson, who finished third, Brad Keselowski (6th), Ryan Blaney (7th) and Alex Bowman (ninth) were eliminated.
“Those other guys were just really fast, and we weren’t really able to do anything with them,” Keselowski, who won three consecutive races in September, said of Sunday’s race. “We were crashed at Dover. We ran out of gas at Talladega when the race went to overtime. The breaks kind of fell against this us this round and we weren’t able to overcome that.”
Harvick entered Sunday’s race with the most points of any playoff driver — including Elliott and Almirola — and his second-place finish in the first stage at Kansas clinched his spot in the Round of 8. After winning the spring race here, Harvick ultimately finished 12th after a pit-road speeding penalty with less than 60 laps to go dropped him from the lead, allowing Elliott to take over.
Pole-sitter Logano and Kyle Busch clinched their spots at the end of the second stage, after finishing third and fifth, respectively, in the segment. So by the end of the second stage, there were seven drivers fighting for only three remaining spots.
Logano won the first stage and was followed by Harvick and Blaney, but then Harvick stole the second stage just ahead of Team Penske pair.
Larson, whose team was given a 10-point penalty this week after violating NASCAR’s damaged vehicle policy last weekend at Talladega, and Bowman needed a victory to remain in contention for the championship. Larson entered the weekend 36 points behind the cutoff mark, while Bowman was 68 points out.
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