Elliott swerves to victory at Watkins Glen

WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. » Like father, like son.

Mired in a confounding losing streak since the start of his NASCAR Cup career in 2016, Chase Elliott finally broke into the win column Aug. 5, holding off road course ace Martin Truex Jr. at Watkins Glen.

The son of Hall of Famer Bill Elliott, who also won his first Cup race on a road course (Riverside in 1983 in his 124th start), Chase celebrated a triumph he will cherish forever. Out of fuel after the finish, he was pushed to victory lane by the banged-up No. 48 Chevy of seven-time Cup champion Jimmie Johnson, a teammate and one of his staunchest supporters, as his father raced to join the celebration after spotting.

Toss in the raucous cheers of the sellout crowd and it doesn’t get much better than that.

“It’s something I’ll never forget,” said Elliott, who has finished second eight times in Cup. “I was going to do a burnout, but I ran out of gas. Certainly glad that we were on the front end today.”

Elliott’s victory came in his 99th Cup start and was the 250th win for Hendrick Motorsports, breaking a 37race losing streak for one of NASCAR’s signature teams. It also assured Elliott a spot in the playoffs as he became only the fifth driver to win a race outside of the “Big 3” of Kyle Busch, Kevin Harvick and Truex, who have combined to win 16 of 22 races.

Truex ran second to Elliott for most of the final stage and began to steadily close as both drivers tried to save enough gas to reach the end of the 90-lap race. It was a two-car breakaway as the rest of the field was more than 11 seconds back.

Truex closed to the back bumper of Elliott’s No. 9 Chevy as his car bobbled slightly out of the first turn on the final lap around the 2.45-mile natural terrain layout. But Truex’s No. 78 Toyota skidded, Elliott regrouped and pulled away and Truex sputtered home, out of fuel.

“I just tried all I could to chase him down, and I got there with plenty of time,” Truex said. “It’s just every time I’d start putting together some good corners and get close enough to him to even think about making a move, I’d get sideways behind him. He did a good job of putting his car exactly where it needed to be and not making a mistake.”

Truex was bidding to become the first Cup driver to win three straight road races since Tony Stewart accomplished the feat just over a decade ago (200405). Kyle Busch finished third, 20 seconds behind, followed by Daniel Suarez and Erik Jones, a triumvirate of Joe Gibbs Racing Toyotas. Pole-sitter Denny Hamlin finished 13th.

The race promised to turn into a fuel mileage race as the laps wound down, and nobody has been better with the strategy than Truex and crew chief Cole Pearn. All three of Truex’s road course wins were won with strategy, including last year at The Glen and this year at Sonoma in California’s wine country.