:DAYTONA BEACH, FL - FEBRUARY 14: Chase Elliott, driver of the #24 NAPA Auto Parts Chevrolet, poses with his car after winning the Pole Award during qualifying for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway on February 14, 2016 in Daytona Beach, Florida.
Chase Elliott must have felt at home on Sunday. Just a few hours from his hometown and on a track where his father won a few decades before, he embraced fans.
The younger Elliott took home a Cup Series race victory at Talladega SuperSpeedway this weekend. He earned Chevrolet their first victory of the season, got his fourth win overall and avoided a race-ending crash that flipped Kyle Larson close to a half-dozen times.
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The race was his first victory since October. After a restart with four laps to go, he worked with a handful of his fellow Chevy drivers to hold off the rest of the pack. It worked and he drove down victory lane only a few hours from his hometown.
His father, Hall of Famer Bill Elliott, won twice at the raceway in the 1980s.
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“Dad’s history, obviously very cool,” Chase Elliott said. “To me the biggest piece of today was just how much of a home race it felt like after the race. I was blown away by the people and how fired up everybody was. That was an unbelievable experience. We are close to home, so that’s cool, and they made me feel that way. I couldn’t ask for much more there.”
Hendrick Motorsports teammate Alex Bowman finished right behind Elliot in second, followed by rookie Ryan Preece, veteran Joey Logano and another rookie, Daniel Hemric.
Elliott’s win ended a seven-race win streak for Ford. Penske Racing had also won six of the last nine.
“We needed to win this,” said Alan Gustafson, Elliott’s crew chief. “We needed to consolidate our efforts. We needed to break the streak that one of our rivals has here.”
His teammate Bowman added that Elliott earned his victory. He said, “Well, I’m not just going to let him win, right? I’ve got to try. I knew I could get to his quarter panel. I was pretty confident I could get to his quarter panel in the tri-oval and who knows who’s going to get to the line first at that point. I thought I could do it, but it depends on the car behind you and where he goes. It would have been fun to try.”
The Cup Series will head to Delaware next Sunday for the Dover 400.
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