By NATE RYAN Associated Press
After an emotionally draining and physically punishing Daytona 500 finish, Chase Elliott is back in his happy place — for the most part — this weekend at Echo Park Speedway.
NASCAR’s eight-time most popular driver lives about 80 miles from the track south of Atlanta, so the Dawsonville native can sleep in his own bed if he pleases.
That’s if he chooses to deal with the traffic.
“I say it all the time, but I enjoy coming down here,” Elliott said a day ahead of Sunday’s 400-miler in suburban Hampton, the second race of the 2026 Cup Series season. “It’s nice to have the option to go home. I’ve still got to deal with Atlanta traffic, but that’s OK and worth it.”
The Hendrick Motorsports star will welcome the respite after a last-lap heartbreak in the Feb. 15 season opener, the latest of his 11 failed attempts at The Great American Race. Elliott led with the white flag in sight at Daytona International Speedway before his No. 9 Chevrolet was turned hard into the outside wall.
He’s fine physically, but the pain lingered from another miss at winning NASCAR’s biggest race (which his Hall of Fame father, Bill, won in 1985 and ’87).
“Just a huge bummer for sure,” Elliott said. “Crashing like that, it’s never fun, but it’s more just processing how close you were to winning. That can be a challenging thing. Fortunately and unfortunately, I have experienced other losses like that. You look back and run through things that you could have done differently, and that I wish I had. Just hope that we get another chance.”
The venue formerly called Atlanta Motor Speedway will offer a similar test of split-second skills. The 1.54-mile oval was transformed four years ago into a high-banked “drafting track” (similar in style to Daytona and Talladega Superspeedway).
In eight races since the reconfiguration, Elliott has two wins and a series-best average finish of 9.14 at Atlanta. He has led the fourth-most laps (166) with lead-lap finishes in all of his starts there since 2022.
He will begin fourth of 38 cars Sunday after qualifying was rained out. Daytona 500 winner Tyler Reddick will be on the pole, but Elliott will be a favorite. According to Racing Insights analytics, he ranks first in passing and second on restarts at drafting tracks.
Last year, Elliott was eighth with 10 laps left but charged to the front with drafting help from teammate Alex Bowman, nipping Brad Keselowski on the last lap for the win.
“Everything happens a little quicker,” Elliott said of racing at Atlanta. “The straightaways being as short as they are, things happen fast, like in double time.”
That often makes for perilous situations. Four of the past eight races at Atlanta ended under caution, and a record 36 of 40 cars were involved in 10 yellow flags last June.
Wreck avoidance is a strength for Elliott, who is among NASCAR’s steadiest drivers. Consistent results will earn a greater reward in the Chase, the 10-race championship run that has been reintroduced this year in place of the elimination playoffs from the past 12 seasons.
Elliott would have won his 2020 championship under the old and new title systems. NASCAR analyst Steve Letarte, a former winning crew chief for Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Jeff Gordon, believes Elliott will benefit the most from the return of the Chase.
“Chase Elliott races a little like his personality,” Letarte said. “He’s very respectful. He’s levelheaded. He makes a lot of good decisions. He operates at 99% and just chugs along. He’d be the one I’d have circled that the format suits the best.”
Having grown up watching the Chase, the 30-year-old Elliott likes the “very genuine, very original” format and his chances at excelling in the title structure, though he believes he can win any week, too.
“My confidence in our whole group maintains at a high level,” he said. “Whether we’re coming off a bad or good week, I know we can get ourselves in the right position to succeed.”
Unwanted intrusion
NASCAR is searching for a fan who interrupted a postrace interview with Daniel Suarez. The Spire Motorsports driver was on camera and speaking in Spanish to Fox Deportes when a man clad in wraparound sunglasses leaned into the microphone from behind, said “47, 47, baby” and then tapped Suarez twice on the shoulder before walking away.
On this week’s “Hauler Talk” podcast, managing director of communications Mike Forde said the incident was being taken “seriously” by NASCAR’s operations and security teams. “If we do find out who this person is, it’s certainly not going to end well for this particular person,” Forde said.
Suarez finished 13th in his debut last week for Spire Motorsports’ No. 7 Chevrolet. In the past four seasons with Trackhouse Racing, Atlanta was among his best tracks with two runner-up finishes and a victory in 2024.
“When they changed the track, I’d say 80% of drivers were negative,” Suarez said. “I was part of the 20% I like new challenges, and something new is the sign of an opportunity.”
Contentious lawsuit
The former competition director of Joe Gibbs Racing has responded to a lawsuit from the team that he allegedly embarked on “a brazen scheme to steal JGR’s most sensitive information.”
Chris Gabehart, who has joined Spire Motorsports in a managerial position, posted on social media that the claims were “frivolous and retaliatory” and said a third-party expert had examined his laptop, cell phone and Google Drive and “found no evidence to support the baseless allegations in JGR’s lawsuit. We even offered JGR the opportunity to do a similar review of Spire’s systems. JGR refused that offer and filed this spiteful lawsuit instead.”
As crew chief for Denny Hamlin from 2019-24, Gabehart oversaw two Daytona 500 victories and three appearances in the championship round.
Odds and ends
Ryan Blaney (+850) is favored by BetMGM Sportsbook. … Tyler Reddick’s Daytona 500 win marked the seventh consecutive race on a drafting track that ended with a last-lap pass, the longest streak in Cup Series history.