The “big one” happened during Saturday’s Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona International Speedway rather quickly. It occurred on Lap 59 and collected a number of race favorites, Chase Elliott among them.
Elliott’s No. 9 Chevrolet was damaged beyond repair, and he is out of the race for the evening, one of 17 drivers involved in the incident. Following his evaluation and discharge from the infield care facility, Elliott discussed his underwhelming evening with NBC Sports.
Elliott remarked, “At that point, I was so far behind the pack and I saw smoke, so I was just trying to slow down and hope nobody hit me from behind.” Sadly, neither of those things came to pass. I think it’s terrible, but all we were doing was biking.
I believe that everyone was merely attempting to pass the stage. Undoubtedly unfortunate. I detest it for all those concerned. We were obviously overdue, but we’ve been quite fortunate in the last three plate races, so we should have a great week next week.
Elliott’s illustrious career will stay winless at Daytona. Interestingly, Elliott has not finished a race this season until now. Elliott had completed all but one of the 6,438 laps this season going into the race on Saturday.
He trailed Tyler Reddick by just 10 points coming into the race, and that gap will persist into Sunday’s race at Darlington. In addition to Reddick, other others involved in the collision were Denny Hamlin, William Byron, and Kyle Larson.
