NASCAR Driver Chase Elliott secured his fourth road course victory in a row on Sunday night, winning the Bank of America Roval 400 in Charlotte, N.C. with an impressive display of racing dominance.
In NASCAR history, only racing legend Jeff Gordon has achieved a longer road course win streak than Elliott’s, with a streak of six road course victories in a row.
“Just had another really fast NAPA Camaro and really appreciate the effort,” Elliott said post race. “Road courses have been fortunate to us the last few trips, but I feel like we just try to get a little better every time, tweak on the small things. I feel like I tweaked on small things and got a little better than I was here last year, which was good.”
During the race on Oct. 11 Elliott tied William Byron for the most laps led, 27, but did not start the race off very hot. Elliott finished Stage 1 in 20th place, almost a replica of last year’s ROVAL win when he got off to a slow start after making contact with a wall on turn one.
Elliott began to pick up speed and race competitively by the beginning of Stage 2 and was able to come back and take second place, finishing behind Ryan Blaney.
Elliott took the lead back from Alex Bowman with only 25 laps left in the race, passed it back and forth with Erik Jones, and finally held onto the lead until the end of the race.
"Best way to get into the next round is to win,'' Elliott said. "Looking forward to the opportunity and looking to make some noise.''
The race at Charlotte ended the Round of 12 playoff portion of the season. Aric Almirola, Clint Bowyer, Austin Dillon and last year’s Nascar Cup Series champion Kyle Busch were all eliminated from the 2020 championship contention.
Ty Dillon and Ryan Blaney both won stages and are non-playoff drivers, so Elliott was the only person to gain playoff points during the race.
Elliott started the race tied with Joey Logano for fourth place in playoff points, but now holds fourth place all by himself. This is important because if no playoff racer wins any of the upcoming three races, the four drivers who move onto the championship race will be determined by playoff points.
Along with Elliott, Kurt Busch, Joey Logano, Martin Truex Jr., Denny Hamlin, Kevin Harvick, Brad Keselowski and Alex Bowman will move onto the round of eight to determine who will race in the NASCAR Cup Series Championship in Phoenix, Arz., on Nov. 8.
The first race of the Round of eight will be at Kansas Speedway on Oct. 18 at 2:30 p.m.