By David Morgan, Associate Editor
HAMPTON, Ga. – There’s no place like home.
Coming into Saturday night’s Quaker State 400 at EchoPark Speedway, Chase Elliott still had a glaring goose egg in the win column, but in a determined drive, the Dawsonville, Georgia native took matters into his own hands, passing Brad Keselowski on the final lap to score the victory and punch his ticket to the Playoffs.
Elliott would lead nine different times throughout the 260-lap race for a total of 41 laps led, but the crucial moment came with three laps to go, when Elliott dove low in a three-wide pass entering Turn 1 over his Hendrick Motorsports teammate Alex Bowman and Ricky Stenhouse, Jr to pave his path to the lead.
Slotting in behind Keselowski and Tyler Reddick down the backstretch, he would get an assist from Bowman to push him past Reddick, which allowed him to set his sights on Keselowski and the win.
Hounding Keselowski with Bowman planted firmly on his rear bumper, Elliott made the pass for the lead once again in Turn 1 on the final lap, clearing him off Turn 2 and setting sail back to the finish line to the raucous cheers of his adoring fans that filled the grandstands.
Bowman and Keselowski dueled it out for the runner-up spot behind him, but neither could mount a challenge to Elliott and he would cross the line and head on to Victory Lane.
Saturday’s win is the second Atlanta victory for Elliott, having also won at his hometown track back in 2022.
THE SI-REEN SOUNDS AGAIN! @chaseelliott wins with a last-lap pass of @keselowski! pic.twitter.com/NHal3tq03c
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) June 29, 2025
“Unbelievable… unbelievable. How about that? Are you kidding me? I’ve never in my life… This is unbelievable. Thank you guys so much,” Elliott said.
“What a special car and just a huge thanks to NAPA Auto Parts and everything they do for me and to benefit Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. Rhealynn Mills designed to fast NAPA Chevrolet tonight, so this was a lot of fun. This right here is something I’ll never forget. Thank you guys so much.”
Asked what the key to victory was for his No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports team, Elliott explained that it was just being in the right place at the right time to have things fall his way that got him to the win.
“Well I just think that, honestly, all the cards fell on the right places there those last couple laps,” Elliott added. “What a crazy race, man. I don’t know if y’all had fun, but it was wild from my seat. I’m so glad we got to run that thing out there to the end.”
Following the win, Hendrick Motorsports General Manager Jeff Andrews gave props to Bowman for the assist that would get Elliott to the lead and on to Victory Lane.
“I just gotta say that we’re probably not sitting here without Alex Bowman and the move he made there and the teammate that he was tonight,” said Andrews.
“So just really proud of him and Blake for the car they had. But, you know, ultimately when you have fast race cars like that, it was kind of clear to us early on that we had a lot of speed in our cars. And you just wanna be able to see that through. So, at that point in time, you think to yourself like, we gotta finish this off. We have really good cars and let’s just figure out a way to finish this off and get out of here with the win, whoever it is.”
Keselowski, who likewise was winless on the year and was driving like the Brad Keselowski of old on the superspeedways, would be credited with the runner-up finish, while Bowman came home in third.
Afterwards, Keselowski pointed to losing his drafting partner in RFK Racing teammate Chris Buescher as being the one thing that tipped the race into Elliott’s favor in the closing laps, having a teammate to help him out in a crucial point in the race.
“The 9 car got a great push from the 48 there,” Keselowski explained. If those guys would race, I could hold them off, but when they double-teamed me like that…same thing when we had a couple of teammates, we were able to hold them off. We lost that and at the end, they were able to double-team me.
“Good effort, led a lot of laps, in position. Don’t think there was anything I could do differently. Just putting ourselves in position. Every loss hurts, I don’t dwell on it, we go on to next week.”
Tyler Reddick would come home in fourth place, with Erik Jones rounding out the top-five.
Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. rebounded from a broken toe link to charge back to a sixth-place finish after leading late in the race, with Zane Smith in seventh, Ty Dillon in eighth, Chris Buescher in ninth, and Carson Hocevar in 10th.
The race would see the yellow flag fly 10 different times, mostly for incidents involving a few cars, along with a rain stoppage after only 37 laps were completed.
However, the end of Stage 1 and the beginning of Stage 2 would see the most carnage, taking out all of the main contenders entering the night, which included all but two drivers that had won a race ahead of this weekend.
The end of Stage 1 took Ryan Blaney out of the mix, relegating him to a 40th place finish, followed by the crash at the start of Stage 2, which involved a total of 23 cars. Among those involved in that crash would be Denny Hamlin, pole sitter Joey Logano and a number of others.
That would pave the way for a first-time winner in 2025 and all-out racing from all of the leaders with a critical win and Playoff berth on the line. On Saturday night, it was just Chase Elliott’s time to shine.
Next up for the NASCAR Cup Series will be a trip to the Chicago Street Course for the third edition of that race, where Saturday’s third place finisher Alex Bowman is the defending winner.
Be the first to comment