Chase Elliott, driver of the No. 9 NAPA AUTO PARTS Chevrolet, finished fourth in Saturday’s Drive4clots.com 300 NASCAR XFINITY Series race at Auto Club Speedway. It was Elliott’s fourth straight top-10 finish, and doing so by picking up nine championship points on leader Ty Dillon. Elliott now only trails first place in the standings by 15 points, just five races into the 2015 season. JR Motorsports driver Kevin Harvick led a race-high 100 laps en route to his 46th XFINITY Series victory and second of the 2015 season.
After qualifying in the 13th position, Elliott moved forward quickly. He drove his NAPA AUTO PARTS Chevrolet to the seventh position by lap two. The early consensus was Elliott being able maneuver around the bottom of the race track easier than the top. Before coming to pit road for fuel, four tires and a chassis adjustment on lap 34, Elliott briefed crew chief Ernie Cope on his NAPA Camaro being tight, but manageable.
Approaching the halfway mark of 75 laps, Elliott, running in the 12th position, expressed to his team he had found something late in green flag run and believed it would benefit the NAPA team closer to the finish of the race.
As Elliott moved around the No. 54 car of Denny Hamlin for ninth-place with 45 laps to go, Cope would bring Elliott down pit road for a scheduled green flag stop. The NAPA KNOW HOW team packed the Chevy full of fuel and gave Elliott four fresh tires. Fortunately for Elliott a caution flag fell 10 laps later, which sent him back to pit road for the last set of new tires, slating him in the 13th position on the following restart, just behind Brad Keselowski, who was also on four new tires.
On the final restart, with 29 laps to go, Keselowski (12th) and Elliott (13th) sliced through the field together. In an effortless motion, Elliott picked up four spots on lap 125 to move him inside the top-five. As Elliott ever-so methodically handles his race car, the 19-year-old eventually moved by the No. 22 of Keselowski for a gritty fourth place finish, making it his highest finishing position of the season and pushing him to third in the points standings with 28 races to go.
Harvick bested Brendan Gaughan, Erik Jones, Elliott and Chris Buescher to notch JRM’s second XFINITY Series victory of the season.
Chase Elliott, driver No. 9 NAPA AUTO PARTS team
“The four tires was a big difference in our speed. Our car was by far the best at the end of the day. I’m so proud of the effort and the way our team fought all day. A big thanks to NAPA AUTO PARTS. We showed a lot of fight today and I felt like Ernie (Ernie Cope, crew chief) made some good calls for us on pit road. We were on the offensive side at times and I like that. We kept adjusting on our car and there at the end we were by far the best we had been all day. That’s what you have to do in order to take it to the next level. We have to keep fighting, but feel like we are closer to getting to victory lane.”
JR Motorsports PR
