By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service
TALLADEGA, Ala. – Always the unquestionable fan favorite at NASCAR’s famed Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway, Georgia-native Chase Elliott made a last-lap pass to claim the NASCAR Cup Series YellaWood 500 victory Sunday afternoon – having to better one of his best friends, Ryan Blaney, to earn the first automatic bid into the next round of the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs.
With a lap to go, Elliott pulled his No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet from the bottom lane to the top lane and got a huge push from behind by Petty GMS Racing driver Erik Jones – the momentum enough to edge fellow Playoff competitor Blaney by a slight .046-second at the line and give him a chance to hoist his series-best fifth trophy of the season; 18th of his seven-year NASCAR Cup Series career.
“Moments like that, you have to really cherish and you guys are what makes this special to me,” Elliott, 26, told the cheering fans. “So, thank you sincerely, I really appreciate it.”
“It was a wild last couple laps. I wasn’t super crazy about being on the bottom and fortunately I got just clear enough off of [Turn] 2 to slide up in front of Erik [Jones] and he gave me some great shoves, obviously a Team Chevy partner there. Just had a good enough run to get out front and then was able to stay far enough in front of Ryan [Blaney] at the line to get it done.
“These things are so so hard to win, you gotta enjoy them and just appreciate everyone’s effort today.”
Former Daytona 500 winner Michael McDowell was third, followed by two more Playoff drivers, Trackhouse Racing’s Ross Chastain and Joe Gibbs Racing’s Denny Hamlin.
Chastain and Stewart-Haas Racing’s Aric Almirola led the most laps on the day – each out front 36 laps – in an afternoon that featured the most lead changes of the season (57) set by 17 different drivers.
Although it was a typically dramatic superspeedway ending, the action was tame by Talladega standards. Only one of the six caution periods was for a multi-car accident. Two were scheduled “stage breaks” and the other two for single car incidents. The final caution -which set up the two-lap shootout ending – came for Daniel Hemric’s stalled car on pit road.
That bunched up the field again and ultimately positioned Elliott (who restarted on the inside of the third row) to make his run forward. Blaney, who led 31 laps in the No. 12 Penske Racing Ford , had been trading…
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