MARTINSVILLE, Va. — Despite a strong performance, Chase Elliott’s day wound up in the wall after getting dumped by Denny Hamlin in the closing laps of the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series First Data 500 at Martinsville Speedway.
After Joey Logano’s spin in Turn 2 with seven laps to go setup a three-lap run to the finish, race leader Brad Keselowski elected to restart on the outside lane. After being given the bottom for free, Elliott forced Keselowski up the track in Turn 1 and took control of the race.
In doing so, however, he too left the bottom open for pouncing, to which Hamlin took up.
Rounding Turn 2 with two to go, when Hamlin backed off, Elliott tried to squeeze back into the bottom lane. While it was to no avail, he successfully cleared Hamlin exiting Turn 2.
Entering Turn 3, Hamlin connected with Elliott’s rear bumper and sent him spinning into the outside wall.
“I got punted from behind and wrecked in Turn 3 leading the race,” Elliott said. “I don’t know what (Hamlin’s) problem was. It was unnecessary I hadn’t raced him dirty all-day long. There was no reason for that and he comes over and talks to me a second ago and tells me he had somebody pushing him into Turn 3. I thought that was funny because there was nobody within two car lengths of him into Turn 3 behind myself. I don’t know what the deal was, but it is so disappointing. We had the best car I’ve ever had here at Martinsville. And had an opportunity to go straight to Homestead and because of him we don’t.”
Elliott wound up finishing 27th.
After the race, he used his car to side-swipe Hamlin down the backstretch to show his displeasure. A few moments later, both drivers got out to voice displeasure to one another.
“Well, he just told me he had somebody pushing him into Turn 3 and I asked him if he knew he wrecked me and he said, ‘yes, but I had somebody pushing me,'” Elliott said. “And I said, ‘well okay, and then why was there two car lengths between you and the guy behind you?’ So, that is just … the guy has been doing this long enough where that shouldn’t happen and it was unnecessary.”
While Hamlin refused to apologize immediately after the race, he sent out the following tweet an hour afterwards.
https://twitter.com/dennyhamlin/status/924792019309998080
Elliott leaves eighth in points, 90 behind Martin Truex Jr. for the points lead and 26 behind Kevin Harvick for the final Championship 4 spot.
