Eighth-Place Finish For Elliott and NAPA at Charlotte

Chase Elliott, driver of the No. 9 NAPA AUTO PARTS Chevrolet, finished eighth in Saturday’s Hisense 300 NASCAR XFINITY Series race at Charlotte Motor Speedway.  Elliott notched his ninth top-10 finish in 11 races so far this season and gained three points on championship leader, Chris Buescher.  Elliott is now 28 points back in the championship standings with 22 races left in the season.  Austin Dillon led a race-high 163 laps en route to his fourth career XFINITY Series victory.

After qualifying 16th, Elliott moved into the 11th position by lap 22.  Elliott indicated early on he was battling a battery issue on his No. 9 NAPA Chevrolet.  Crew chief Ernie Cope guaranteed Elliott the team would fix the problem once the time was right and for him to keep an eye on the voltage gauge throughout the early-going of the race.  After the first pit stop on lap 50, Elliott restart 12th on lap 57.  Within one lap, the 19-year-old picked up six spots as he came back across the stripe.

On lap 95, Elliott radioed to Cope that his gauges were red.  Cope and the No. 9 team brought Elliott to pit road under caution on lap 112 to switch the faulty battery.  Cope called Elliott back to pit road on lap 113 for right-side tires and a chassis adjustment.  Elliott made a third and final visit to pit road under the caution to ensure the battery was in good shape before restarting 17th at lap 118.

As the race ended on a 34-lap green flag stretch, Elliott did all he could to regain track position.  By race’s end, he had climbed all the way back up to eighth.

Dillon bested Denny Hamlin, Kasey Kahne, Regan Smith and Darrell Wallace Jr. for his second victory of the season.  

Chase Elliott, driver No. 9 NAPA AUTO PARTS team

“Our NAPA AUTO PARTS Chevrolet was solid in today’s race, we just never had the track position we needed.  Dirty air at a place like Charlotte can really hurt on long runs and that was our case today.  I’m definitely pleased with the way we performed in practice Thursday getting our car to where we needed for today’s race.  That’s important to continue to build on as we head to Dover next weekend.  It’s a long season and we will keep inching closer towards our ultimate goals.  We have to continue to work hard in the shop and we’ll get the results we need on the track.”

JR Motorsports PR