How Chase Elliott snapped his drought at Atlanta

Chase Elliott is one of the best drivers in the NASCAR Cup Series, but he hasn’t had much luck in getting to Victory lane in recent years, failing to win in an injury-plagued 2023 and only scored a single victory in 2024, until Atlanta came round.

After an agonising 44-race winless streak spanning 440 days, Elliott is finally a race winner once again and on his home turf in Atlanta. The Georgia native passed Brad Keselowski on the final lap to win the Quaker State 400 at EchoPark Speedway, guaranteeing him a spot in the playoffs.

Elliott entered Atlanta fifth in points, the highest ranking by a driver who had yet to win. After starting 15th and a fairly quiet Stage 1, a myriad of crashes took out most contenders during the second stage. He, on the other hand, kept his head down and worked through the carnage to eventually catch the leaders.

Elliott and Tyler Reddick ran side by side on the final lap of Stage 2, losing out in what would have been the closest finish in Atlanta history if it was the last lap of the race.

With Atlanta being a pseudo-superspeedway heavily reliant on the draft, Elliott worked with his Hendrick Motorsports team-mate Alex Bowman to stay up front. The two jockeyed with the likes of Zane Smith and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. before Keselowski entered the picture.

Like Elliott, Keselowski was desperate for any kind of good fortune in Atlanta. He entered Atlanta sitting an uncharacteristically disappointing 30th in points but seemed to have a good rhythm as of late with top-ten finishes in two of the last three events.

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Keselowski took the lead with six laps remaining, trying to hold off Elliott and Bowman. As the last lap began, Bowman gave Elliott enough of a push to get him up to Keselowski’s bumper and Elliott made his move on the inside through Turn 1.

“There was nothing I could do to cover that,” Keselowski explained. “When we had our cars linked up at RFK (Racing), we could do the same thing, but we lost that. It was just a two-on-one and I fought as hard as I could.

“The cars get too big of a run and it ain’t over until it’s over. Every time I got the lead, I couldn’t seem to get everything to go our way. If we could have gotten a yellow or anything there it certainly would have been helpful, but that didn’t happen.

“They were able to work together really well and kind of double up on me at the end and there was nothing I could do. Every loss stings.”

In-Season Challenge brackets busted

Atlanta was the inaugural race of the NASCAR In-Season Challenge, a 32-driver knockout tournament based on the head-to-head elimination format used at the NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament (March Madness). 32 drivers entered Atlanta eligible to win, each paired up against one another, with the winner advancing to the next round.

The next race in Chicago will then have 16 drivers left, followed by eight at Sonoma and four at Dover. For the final race at Indianapolis, whoever finishes highest of the two remaining drivers earns USD$1 million (€853,133.13). The bracket was set using the three previous races at Michigan, Mexico City, and Pocono.

With nearly the entire Cup Series grid entered and seeding meaning the top drivers mostly went up against those lower in points, many expected the first round to favour the drivers closer to the highest rung standings. For example, three-time race winner Denny Hamlin (who came up with the idea for the In-Season Challenge) was the #1 seed which matched him up against the 32nd-seeded Ty Dillon, who was outside the top 30 in points.

As it turned out, having the first race of the tournament be at a drafting track meant upsets galore. A series of massive crashes eliminated much of the field, including back-to-back “Big Ones” in Stage 2. Hamlin was one of 19 drivers collected on Lap 72.

With Hamlin out of the picture, Dillon simply needed to reach the finish to advance to the Round of 16. He ultimately succeeded as he avoided all incidents to finish eighth. Dillon was not the only upset of the round as seven other drivers defeated their higher-seeded opponents:

• #17 Brad Keselowski (finished 2nd) beat #16 Kyle Busch (21st)
• #20 Erik Jones (5th) beat #13 Ross Chastain (38th)
• #22 A.J. Allmendinger (12th) beat #11 Michael McDowell (18th)
• #23 Tyler Reddick (4th) beat #10 Kyle Larson (167th)
• #26 Carson Hocevar (10th) beat #7 Ryan Blaney (40th)
• #29 Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (6th) beat #4 Christopher Bell (30th)
• #31 Noah Gragson (25th) beat #2 Chase Briscoe (35th)

Conversely, the following matchups saw the drivers with better seedings win out:

• #3 Chris Buescher (9th) beat #30 Todd Gilliland (27th)
• #5 Chase Elliott (1st) beat #28 Austin Dillon (20th)
• #6 Ty Gibbs (14th) beat #27 Justin Haley (23rd)
• #8 Alex Bowman (3rd) beat #25 Joey Logano (36th)
• #9 Bubba Wallace (22nd) beat #24 Daniel Suárez (34th)
• #12 John Hunter Nemechek (26th) beat #21 Josh Berry (32nd)
• #14 Zane Smith (7th) beat #19 Austin Cindric (38th)
• #15 Ryan Preece (15th) beat #18 William Byron (37th)

“For all you Denny fans out there, I just knocked your favorite driver out,” Dillon quipped. The quote is a reference to Hamlin’s catchphrase that the polarising driver typically repeats to fans after his wins.

Hamlin, as the tournament’s creator, in turn quipped that it’s the “NASCAR playoffs 2.0.”

NASCAR 2025 Quaker State 400 – Results