DARLINGTON, S.C. – After initially refusing to visit the Darlington Raceway infield care center following his race retirement, NASCAR Playoff top seed Chase Elliott stormed over to the small medical building in the middle of the 1.33-mile oval for his mandatory medical check on Sunday, Sep. 4.
When Elliott walked out of the care center, he said two sentences to media reporters and walked away.
A tight lipped Chase Elliott didn’t have much to say after a broken toe link forced him to retire for the first round of the #NASCARPlayoffs
When asked what he had to do for the next two races, he replied:
“Run better than we did today.”#NASCAR @Frontstretch #Southern500 pic.twitter.com/powTqrziPT
— Dalton Hopkins (@PitLaneLT) September 5, 2022
Despite his slight smile, it was obvious.
He was angry, and he would not be the last.
The tight-lipped Georgian driver was one of many in the playoffs that had endured a terrible first round of the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series post-season. One by one, the Lady in Black claimed the efforts of several playoff drivers through various mechanical failures from broken toe bars to blown engines, sending them deeper into the playoff field with some ground lost already in the first round of the playoffs.
It started with Elliott.
His evening didn’t start positively. The No. 9 Chevrolet rolled off 23rd in the field, which was the lowest-starting team out of the 16 drivers in the playoffs.
Despite that, Elliott had plenty of time to work his way to the front and add more points to his already soft 33-point cushion that he had built over the regular season. After all, it was a 500-mile race. One of the longest of the year, timewise.
However, even after the first few laps, Elliott didn’t seem to go anywhere. In fact, the regular season champion stayed right where he was in 23rd.
Chase Elliott hasn’t been able to make much progress so far. Still P23. Daniel Suarez is up to P30 after getting the free pass. 10 laps to go until comp caution.
— Jeff Gluck (@jeff_gluck) September 4, 2022
It didn’t get any better, either. In fact, it couldn’t have gotten much worse.
With only one lap to go in stage one, Elliott broke loose while entering turn 1. The No. 9 was sent into a cyclone and collected fellow playoff driver Chase Briscoe.
Chase Elliott spins and collects Chase Briscoe!
Not how either driver wanted their #NASCARPlayoffs to start.
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