By Seth Eggert, Staff Writer
For Chase Elliott, the Drydene 400 at Dover International Speedway ended almost immediately after the green flag.
The Hendrick Motorsports driver broke loose in turns one and two before slowing a lap later. Elliott’s No. 9 Hooters – Give a Hoot Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 circulated off the pace. The caution waved at the same time for an unrelated piece of debris as he ducked onto pit road.
The Alan Gustafson-led team lifted the hood in an attempt to diagnose the problem. Within minutes, Elliott’s team pushed the defending race winner to the garage with a blown motor.
Elliott knew that the engine failed but didn’t have a diagnosis.
“I just had an engine failure of some sort. Unfortunately, we don’t really know what it was just yet. It just quit running. It didn’t really seem like anything was off. We were just kind of making laps and then obviously had a failure. It’s an unfortunate way to start this round for sure.”
The engine failure leaves Elliott 11th on the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Playoff Grid, seven-points behind the cutoff for the Round of Eight, held by teammate William Byron. The 19-point cushion that the 23-year-old entered Dover with evaporated.
Luckily for Elliott, several of his playoff grid competitors encountered their own issues. Joey Logano broke an axle prior to the green flag. Ryan Blaney lost his brakes in the closing stages. Both Byron and Kyle Busch received speeding penalties. Each problem limited the impact of the blown motor.
Now Elliott has two more chances to move back above the cutline. With the wildcard that is the 1000bulbs.com 500 at Talladega Superspeedway looming, the narrow point gap could easily shrink or grow.
Elliott believed that he may end up in a ‘must win situation’ the closer he gets to Homestead.
“I don’t know where we’ll stack up. I assume we’ll have to win one of these next few weeks. If you ever make it to Homestead, you’re going to have to win down there. I guess it’s a good opportunity to practice here these next few weeks.”