The Oneida Daily Dispatch (Oneida, NY)
Typical Bristol fireworks
This is the fifth and final of a series counting down the top five NASCAR Cup Series races of 2020. This week, No. 1:
WHENNASCAR resumed its season in May, it was the Chase Elliott Show for the first two weeks.
The eventual Cup champion had a win taken away by Kyle Busch at Darlington, made an ill- timed pit- stop at Charlotte that costhima Coca- Cola 600, defeated Busch a few days later in the $ 100,000 “bounty” Truck race, and then scored his first Cup win of the year two days later at the second Charlotte race.
So naturally, when the Series went to Bristol on the final day of May, it was a foregone conclusion that Elliott would once again be in the middle of the chaos.
“He wrecked me,” Joey Logano said. “He got loose underneath me ... I passed him clean.”
Elliott led the field to green with five laps to go, and cleared Logano on the restart. The two battled nose- to- tail for the next two laps before Logano ultimately passed Elliott for the lead with three laps left.
Elliott, who led 88 laps, wouldn’t go away, and pulled right up to Logano’s fender. The two made contact, and Elliott slid underneath Logano going into Turn 3. Elliott couldn’t make the slidejob stick, and the two drifted up the track and into the wall.
With those two out of the picture, third- place Brad Keselowski took the lead and never looked back, defeating
Clint Bowyer as Logano and Elliott limped their mangled cars back to the finish line.
“We kind of got a Christmas present here in Bristol,” Keselowski said. “We’ll take it.”
Logano was quick to confront Elliott after the race, later saying he had to “force” an apology.
“The part that’s frustrating is that afterwards a simple apology — like be a man and come up to someone and say, ‘ Hey, my bad.’ But I had to force an apology, which, to me, is childish.”
Elliott finished 22nd after “going for the win,” and shouldered the blame.
“Trying to get a run underneath him and got really loose in, and I don’t know if I had a tire going down or just got loose on entry,” he said. “As soon as I turned off the wall I had zero chance in making it, s o I’ll certainly take the blame ... Ihate we bothwrecked, butwe can’t go back in time
now.”
Keselowski started on the pole and led 115 laps, which was second only todenny Hamlin’s 131. Elliott ultimately took the lead with 12 laps to go after Hamlin, the leader at the time, hit the wall during a fierce battle with Elliott and Logano.
With Hamlin in the wall, Logano ducked low and took the lead for a brief second before Elliott got under Logano going into Turn 3, sending Logano up the track and in front of Hamlin.
Elliott made the slide- job stick this time, and held the lead as Hamlin spun out behind him, bringing out the final caution of the day that would set up the dramatic finish.
In all, there were 17 cautions for 102 laps — the most in a Bristol race since 2006.
“It was just such a turn of events it felt like I was playing poker in Vegas,” Keselowski joked after the race.