NASCAR midweek at Charlotte results: 4 things we learned from Chase Elliott’s victory

Chase Elliott said he was expecting something to go wrong in the last five laps of NASCAR’s Thursday night Cup race at Charlotte.

“I was just waiting for the caution flag to come out,” Elliott said in reference to his near-win at Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600.

But no caution came, and Elliott was able to lead the field to his second win at Charlotte Motor Speedway this week.

Elliott took his first checkered flag of the Cup Series season, finishing more than 2 seconds ahead of second-place finisher Denny Hamlin, who edged past Ryan Blaney in the final seconds of the race. Blaney finished third.

“I was pretty good for 30, 35 laps,” Blaney said after the race. “And then I started getting really tight and (Hamlin) started running me down. I was struggling. We lost second place, but he just ran me down and was able to get around me in traffic.”

HARVICK COULDN’T CLOSE

Elliott and Harvick raced each other side-by-side throughout the evening, making similarly-timed pit stops, but Elliott was able to close the final stage. Meanwhile Harvick, the race lap-leader, finished in 10th place. The finish was still Harvick’s 13th top-10 finish in a row.

“It just falls off after lap 30,” Harvick said. “And we knew that’s what we had with our Busch Light Ford and it went straight 60-some laps.”

JGR STARTED COLD, FINISHED HOT

Joe Gibbs Racing drivers were missing from the conversation early. After a dominant showing during the Coca-Cola 600 at the same speedway, Martin Truex Jr. hovered around the bottom half throughout the first two stages. He was still able to finish ninth.

A night of three-wide restarts proved detrimental to those in the middle of the pack, but for those able to break through, the result was positive.

Off the restart following the first stage, Kyle Busch was forced back to pit road after struggling through Turn 3 and 4 with tire trouble. He returned to the field two laps down, eventually reducing that to one lap down.

“When surrounded by squirrels you’re bound to get hit by a nut,” Busch tweeted after the race, referencing his middle-of-the-pack run.

EARLY LEADERS STRUGGLED

Like Busch, Alex Bowman similarly struggled through a turn that sent him back to pit road and running a lap down alongside Busch after chasing down Harvick in first. Following a Stage 2 win, Bowman got wide rounding Turn 4 and hit the wall, suffering damage to the right side of his 88 car.

Bubba Wallace started with a strong night, moving from a 38th-place start up to the top-10 in Stage 2. A mechanical failure late in the final stage sent Wallace to pit road and out of the race.

TEAM PENSKE STAYED STEADY

Joey Logano breezed through a first stage win Thursday. After the competition caution on Lap 20, Logano jumped to the lead, where he remained following a rain delay that lasted a little over an hour. His teammate Blaney became a late contender in the race, running in the top-three consistently when it mattered most.

While Gibbs, Penske, and Stewart-Haas names were in the mix throughout the top-10, Hendrick was the one that finished first.

“We can’t control when a caution comes out two laps to go and you’re kind of in a lose‑lose situation there,” Elliott said. “We’ve got to keep doing things that are in our hands and keep doing those well.”

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This story was originally published May 28, 2020 at 11:21 PM.

Alexandra Andrejev

The Charlotte Observer

NASCAR and Charlotte FC beat reporter Alex Andrejev joined The Observer in January 2020 following an internship at The Washington Post. She is a two-time APSE award winner for her NASCAR beat coverage and National Motorsports Press Association award winner. She is the host of McClatchy’s podcast “Payback” about women’s soccer. Support my work with a digital subscription