Chase Elliott only has one more opportunity to get back into the Championship 4. He must win next weekend at Martinsville Speedway after finishing 40th at Talladega Superspeedway.
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The Hendrick Motorsports driver became an innocent bystander during a multi-car crash that unfolded near the end of stage 1 on Sunday. Erik Jones pushed Noah Gragson at the wrong time, which sent the No. 4 spinning from the front row.
Gragson slammed into AJ Allmendinger in the bottom row, which sent the No. 16 up into the outside wall. Jones and Gragson then slammed into Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Justin Haley. Elliott went to check up further back in the pack, but Daniel Suarez hit him from behind while Austin Cindric hit him on the right side.
There's trouble in Turn 3!@chaseelliott is among the cars collected. pic.twitter.com/tNc6D3Gdfh
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) October 19, 2025
Elliott's No. 9 Chevrolet spun to the left and hit Austin Dillon's No. 3 Chevrolet broadside. This destroyed the front of the car. The Hendrick driver made it back to the garage, but the team could not make the repairs required to get the car back onto the track.
"I saw someone get turned sideways," Elliott said after exiting the infield care center. "I was trying to get slowed up like normal. I ended up getting turned sideways into some other cars, and then they slid back into me. I'm not really sure...
"I hate it. I felt like we had ourselves in a good spot before the pit cycle. I didn't feel like we executed the cycle very well and that put us back in the back again. I'm not sure if that would have helped us miss the wreck or not."
Elliott, the 2020 Cup Series champion, entered the weekend 23 points below the cutline. He had an opportunity to erase this deficit by scoring points in the first two stages and delivering a solid finish. This crash kept him from accomplishing this.
Now, Elliott can only attempt to win his way into the Championship 4 in next weekend's elimination race at Martinsville Speedway. This is something he did back in the 2020 season, which set him up to win the championship for the first time.
Since this win, the veteran driver has posted seven top-10 finishes and 846 laps led. He has finished runner-up twice in this stretch of races, so he has remained competitive at the Virginia short track.
