For the third time in 2022, the Chase Elliott siren rang out at the Pool Hall in Dawsonville, Ga.
In Sunday’s (July 10) Quaker State 400 at Atlanta Motor Speedway, Elliott became the first three-time winner of the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series season. He also became only the second Georgia driver to win at Atlanta after his father Bill Elliott managed it five times.
Despite leading the most laps and winning the first two stages, Elliott only took the lead for the final time with two laps to go, diving to the bottom of Corey LaJoie into turn one, and blocking him in the same turn one lap later. As LaJoie bounced off the wall and spun back down the track, the caution came out and the race was over, Elliott scored the winner over Ross Chastain and Austin Cindric.
Despite a slick racetrack, the field kept it clean throughout the first stage, the only yellow coming on lap 26 for the competition caution. Despite the best efforts of lap leaders Chastain, Denny Hamlin and Ryan Blaney, it was Georgia’s favorite son in Elliott who took the stage one victory. It was the No. 9’s fourth of the year and first at his home track after a shove from teammate Alex Bowman on the final lap.
The cautions started coming in the second stage. First, a spin from BJ McLeod involved Chris Buescher and Ty Dillon. Then, on lap 91, came the first big crash of the afternoon.
Martin Truex Jr. spins, collecting Austin Dillon, Joey Logano and many more. #NASCAR
📺 : @USA_Network pic.twitter.com/rR7raVXNDu
— NASCAR on NBC (@NASCARonNBC) July 10, 2022
Chastain gave Martin Truex Jr. a bad push in the center of turn two, and the No. 19 spun around in front of the field, collecting Michael McDowell, Austin Dillon, Kyle Larson, Joey Logano and Kyle Busch. Dillon got the worst of it, sent hard into the SAFER barrier with the right-front of his No. 3 Chevy.
“When you’ve got guys like (Ross Chastain) wrecking half the field, you might as well take a different strategy.”
Austin Dillon called out the driver of the No. 1 car after a big hit at @amsupdates. #NASCAR pic.twitter.com/x9AOiNiIII
— NASCAR on NBC (@NASCARonNBC) July 10, 2022
The Richard Childress Racing driver had some harsh words for Chastain.
“We were just a casualty of Ross Chastain again,” Dillon said to NBC outside the infield care center. “[…] I told myself we were going to race hard all day. Wasn’t one of those things where I was going to ride in the back and be there at the end, but when you’ve got…
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