KANSAS CITY, Kansas - Mired on the fifth row with a green-white-checkered, double-overtime finish looming and five Toyotas at the front, things didn't exactly look promising in terms of a race win for Chase Elliott and the No. 9 Kelley Blue Book Chevrolet team at Kansas Speedway on Sunday.
But with four fresh Goodyears, Chase Elliott rocketed to the top at the drop of the green flag and never lifted. And as he sheepishly grinned during a postrace interview, "the seas kind of parted."
One-by-one over two laps, Elliott picked his way through the pack, culminating in a three-wide pass and some contact with Denny Hamlin getting out of the final turn as the Dawsonville, Georgia, native powered to his second win of the 2025, clinching his spot in the NASCAR Cup Series Round of 8.
"Just, everything worked out perfect for me," Elliott said. "I had a great push through (turns) one and two, that kind of all started with (Brad Keselowski) and had a big run off of (turn two). The seas kind of parted and just was able to keep my momentum up. That was really it. And obviously, we still had pretty good tires compared to those guys."
ARTIFACT OF THE WEEK: Win a rare Jimmie Johnson diecast with our trivia quiz!
It will mark Elliott's second straight appearance in the Round of 8 and his fifth in the last six years including a championship in 2020. And it also highlighted a solid day for all of Hendrick Motorsports' remaining playoff drivers with Kyle Larson finishing sixth and William Byron rallying from early adversity to finish ninth.
Both Larson and Elliott were fixtures at the front of the field from the start, after qualifying third and fourth respectively on Saturday.
Thanks to that track position and strong Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolets, that led to crucial stage points for both drivers in both stages. Larson finished second in stage one and third in stage two, piling up 17 bonus markers, while Elliott came home third and fourth, bringing home 15 extra tallies.
Elliott snatched the lead away on the stage three restart and led 23 laps before succumbing to Hamlin on a long run. A debris caution with 15 laps remaining sent the field down pit road. The top eight, including Byron, chose to take two tires while Elliott and Larson took four.
A Carson Hocevar crash with seven laps to go necessitated a first attempt at an overtime finish. But just as the field was coming off of turn four to take the white flag, Zane Smith got turned vertically along the wall and flipped down the race track, bringing out a red flag.
FALL FEST: Come meet your favorite Hendrick Motorsports driver this week!
After a brief stoppage, the cars lined up one more time with Elliott starting behind Byron, fifth in the outside lane. With a push from Keselowski, Elliott jumped to Byron's outside getting into turn one and cleared both Byron and Larson on the backstretch. He then got alongside Tyler Reddick going into turn three and moved into fifth as the white flag flew.
Christopher Bell and Bubba Wallace made contact at the front of the field, slowing Bell's momentum and Elliott passed Bell for fourth before diving to Briscoe's inside entering turn one. Briscoe scraped the wall coming out of turn two with Elliott clearing into third. In the final corner, Hamlin dove under Wallace and got tight, pushing both up the race track and allowing Elliott to dive to the bottom before clearing in the tri-oval.
Larson emerged from the late chaos and now has a 54-point advantage on the cutline heading into next week's Round of 12 finale. Byron too is in good shape, 40 markers to the good in sixth place in the standings.
The Round of 12 will conclude at the Charlotte ROVAL next Sunday. The race will begin at 3 p.m. and will air on USA Network.
Who won the NASCAR race today?
- Chase Elliott, No. 9 Kelley Blue Book Chevrolet
- Denny Hamlin, No. 11
- Christopher Bell, No. 20
- Chase Briscoe, No. 19
- Bubba Wallace, No. 23
- Kyle Larson, No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet
- Tyler Reddick, No. 45
- Brad Keselowski, No. 6
- William Byron, No. 24 Cincinnati Chevrolet
- Shane van Gisbergen, No. 88
- Ross Chastain, No. 1
- Todd Gilliland, No. 38
- Ty Dillon, No. 10
- Michael McDowell, No. 71
- Chris Buescher, No. 17
- Erik Jones, No. 43
- Daniel Suarez, No. 99
- Justin Haley, No. 7
- Kyle Busch, No. 8
- Cole Custer, No. 41
- Joey Logano, No. 22
- Riley Herbst, No. 35
- Noah Gragson, No. 4
- Ryan Blaney, No. 12
- Ty Gibbs, No. 54
- Ryan Preece, No. 60
- Austin Dillon, No. 3
- Alex Bowman, No. 48 Ally Chevrolet
- Carson Hocevar, No. 77
- Austin Cindric, No. 2
- Zane Smith, No. 38
- John Hunter Nemechek, No. 42
- Josh Berry, No. 21
- JJ Yeley, No. 44
- Ricky Stenhouse Jr., No. 47
- AJ Allmendinger, No. 16
- Cody Ware, No. 51