Chase Elliott, driver of the No. 9 NAPA AUTO PARTS Chevrolet, won Saturday night’s EnjoyIllinois.com 300 NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Chicagoland Speedway. It was his third victory in an outstanding rookie campaign that is only 18 races old. With the win, Elliott now leads teammate Regan Smith by seven points in the season-long drivers’ standings.
Despite having never raced at the 1.5-mile tri-oval, Elliott found himself on the move to the front early. Elliott blasted his No. 9 machine past pole-sitter Brian Scott into the lead on lap 21 and set sail. At one point, Elliott extended his lead to more than eight seconds over his nearest competitor.
In the latter stages, Elliott and NASCAR Sprint Cup Series standout Kyle Larson waged a spirited battle for the top spot before Elliott’s crew chief Greg Ives called him to pit road for the team’s final pit stop at lap 161. Both Elliott and his NAPA AUTO PARTS crew executed a flawless pit stop under pressure to distance themselves from Larson through the sequence of green-flag pit stops. By the time the running order cycled through, Elliott found himself with a four-second advantage over Larson and Trevor Bayne. He’d never relinquish the lead again as he cruised to the victory by 1.773 seconds over Bayne, Larson, Kasey Kahne and Ty Dillon.
Racing the same chassis he took to victory lane at Darlington Raceway back in April, Elliott led a race-high 85 laps en route to his third career victory and the seventh win for JR Motorsports in 2014. The win qualifies Elliott to compete for an additional $100,000 bonus courtesy of Nationwide Insurance’s Dash 4 Cash program next weekend at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
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