Chase Elliott entered the Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway ranked seventh in the playoff standings, but Sunday turned out to be a rough outing for the entire Hendrick Motorsports stable. The No. 9 driver’s 17th-place finish ended up as the best result among all four of Rick Hendrick’s cars.
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Rolling off from 21st, Elliott picked up two spots to finish Stage 1 in 19th before slipping back to 21st in Stage 2. By the end of the night, he managed to claw his way back inside the top-20. Even he admitted it was a grind, noting how every Chevrolet and Hendrick entry seemed to fade as the laps wore on.
“It was a really long night,” Elliott said post-race. “Yeah, we had clawed our way up to the top 10 and tried to run really long on that one run.
“Everyone was being real aggressive with short-pitting, so we tried to run long. And then yeah, as soon as we did that, about eight or 10 laps in, the caution came out.”
“It was honestly laughable at that juncture. Just came in and had an issue on pit road… had to put our heads down and grind out, just keep pushing at it. It’s been a long night for sure.”
Looking ahead, Elliott stressed the need to regroup quickly. “We’ve got to put our heads together and try to figure out how to be better next week at Gateway,” he added.
The poor showing reshuffled the playoff deck for Hendrick’s camp. Kyle Larson slipped to third, still 38 points above the cut line. William Byron, the regular-season champion, dropped to a tie for fifth with a 25-point cushion.
Elliott sits 11th, only nine points clear, while Alex Bowman faces the steepest climb, needing either a win or cutting a deficit of 19 points over the next two races to stay in contention.
Elliott, though, can take some comfort from the numbers. His Next Gen era average finish of 6.8 at Bristol suggests he’ll feel far more confident under the lights there than at Gateway, where his career average sits at 17.0.
