Chase Elliott spent most of the afternoon fighting his way to the front at Darlington Raceway, only to have to avoid a late wreck to pull off a top-five finish.
“It was a solid finish, for sure,” Elliott said of being third in the running order behind teammate William Byron and Kevin Harvick. “I felt like our No. 9 LLumar Chevy was plenty good enough to go up there and battle with those guys to win. I just struggled so bad in traffic; way worse than other guys do driving this caliber of a car. I just feel like, from that standpoint, I’ve got a lot of work to do on my end.
“Alan (Gustafson, crew chief) and our team have done a really good job preparing good race cars. Our pit stops really kept us in the game all day. Obviously, we got really fortunate and lucky with those cautions coming out.”
Such a battle for track position was it for Elliott and the No. 9 team, he didn’t score points through either stage. Once Elliot had track position in the final stage, he was nearly collected in the crash between Martin Truex Jr. and Joey Logano off a restart with 13 laps to go in regulation.
Elliott was runn ing sixth, sitting third in the outside lane, when the crash happened. There was contact for Elliot in the chain reaction, but he stayed on track and made it to the finish without issue.
Sunday was Elliott’s third top-10 finish in the last five races, all of which have been since he returned from being sidelined from a snowboarding injury. It was his best finish since returning to action.