Elliott overcomes mistake to win playoff race at Charlotte

Bowman finishes 2nd, Harvick 3rd

CONCORD, North Carolina, Sept 30, (AP): Chase Elliott overcame a costly mistake that nearly wrecked his car to win a sloppy race in scorching temperatures on The Roval at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

The showcase was the first elimination race in NASCAR’s playoffs and attention was focused on which four drivers would be cut from 16-driver championship field. Elliott recovered from an earlier gaffe when he was leading on a restart, locked his tires headed into the first turn and drove directly into a tire barrier. the garage, calling it a race with seven laps remaining. He was three laps down at the time and already locked into the second round of the playoffs.

Kevin Harvick finished third and was followed by Stewart-Haas Racing teammate Clint Bowyer, who was in danger of being eliminated from the playoffs but advanced with his fourthplace finish. Brad Keselowski was fifth and followed by polesitter William Byron, Martin Truex Jr and Ryan Blaney as playoff drivers claimed the top eight spots.

The track, typically a standard NASCAR oval, was modified for this playoff race for the second consecutive year into a 17-turn, 2.28mile circuit that uses both the road course through the infield and the oval. The twists and turns around the circuit are marked with chicanes on the backstretch and frontstretch to slow the cars, and, potentially increase passing on the oval portion of the track. An added wrinkle from last year is an overhauled backstretch chicane revamped to make it a braking and passing zone.

NASCAR made it very clear in every communication with teams that skipping a chicane would be penalized, and Newman was one of many drivers to miss it and suffer a costly setback.

Erik Jones was the first driver eliminated from the playoffs after a horrible opening round.

He had a mechanical issue at Las Vegas, but rallied last week at Richmond to finish fourth in a 1-2-3-4 sweep for Joe Gibbs Racing. Then NASCAR said Jones’ car had failed post-race inspection, and the 42-point penalty dropped him to last in the playoff field.

Jones was in a must-win situation at Charlotte to advance into the second round of the playoffs, but he went to the garage with damage to his Toyota at the end of the first stage and finished last. It officially knocked him out of the playoffs while the race was still going on.

“It’s frustrating not to even have a chance throughout the whole race, you know?” said Jones. “It’s unfortunate. We just had three really bad weeks and it’s some of our own doing and some not our own doing. I’d love to be moving forward here and challenging for the championship. I thought we could have went pretty deep this year, but it’s just the nature of the playoffs.”

Kyle Busch decided not to finish the race when NASCAR stopped it with seven laps remaining to clean up debris on the track. Busch was three laps down at the time and temperatures in the cars were hovering around 120 degrees during the stoppage.

Bowman Chase Elliott poses with the trophy after winning the NASCAR Cup Series auto race at Charlotte Motor Speedway in Concord, North Carolina on Sept

29, 2019. (AP)