Chase Elliott scored his second win in three playoff races on Sunday, winning the Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas Speedway to close out the second round of the NASCAR playoffs.
The win gives Elliott three victories in his last 10 events, after taking 99 races to get his first career title.
Elliott Wins by Nearly a Full Second
Elliott was able to take the lead thanks to Kevin Harvick being hit with a pit road speeding penalty with 53 laps remaining the race. That left Brad Keselowski in first, but he pitted just 10 laps later, allowing Elliott to move to the front and stay there for the remainder of the race.
“I feel like we are among those guys that you have to beat, and I think that is all you can ask for,” Elliot said after the race. “I think we still have room to improve, but the last month or two has been way closer to where we need to be.”
Elliott finished .903 seconds ahead of Kyle Busch, who easily qualified for the Round of 8. In third place was Kyle Larson, who scrambled up the standings late in a bid to get the win he would have needed to move on in the playoffs, coming up two spots short in the end.
Larson, Keselowski Among Eliminated Drivers
Larson had to start the race in a backup car from the back of the pack following a wreck of his primary car in qualifying.
“I’m actually glad that nothing stupid took us out of the playoffs this year,” Larson said afterwards. “Obviously I would have liked to have made it into the next round. But I’m glad it wasn’t anything other than just us not performing where we needed to be that kept us out of the next round.”
Also eliminated from the playoff picture were Brad Keselowski, Alex Bowman, and Ryan Blaney. Larson noted that the playoff setup made it difficult for those near the bottom of the standings to stay in contention as the field narrows.
“For the teams that start the playoffs with not many playoff points, you’re already at a pretty big deficit to those guys,” he told reporters. “You know you have to be perfect…you can’t really expect to make it to the next round without being up front all race long. So that’s kind of where our round went wrong.”
Kyle Busch will come into the Round of 8 as the points leader, one point ahead of Harvick. Martin Truex Jr. is in third place, after which there is a wide gap down to Elliott, Clint Bowyer, Joey Logano, Kurt Busch, and Aric Almirola. Only four drivers will remain in contention after this round, with the top finisher of those four in the Ford EcoBoost 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway on Nov. 18 earning the NASCAR Cup Series championship.
The Round of 8 begins next Sunday at Martinsville Speedway, where SportPesa lists Kevin Harvick as an 11/4 favorite to win over Kyle Larson (7/2) and Martin Truex Jr. (4/1).
