DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – By the end of one of the more chaotic drafting races in recent memory, even by Daytona International Speedway standards, only four cars escaped without being involved in a wreck.
Unfortunately, that didn’t include any of the Hendrick Motorsports four.
Crashes and carnage were the theme of Saturday night leaving most drivers searching for positives to take away from the Coke Zero Sugar 400.
For Alex Bowman, it was a finish on the lead lap. For Kyle Larson and William Byron, it was stage points in each of the first two stages. And for Chase Elliott, as well as Larson, it’s a final chance at a regular season points title, despite a tough result Saturday.
Bowman led the way for Hendrick Motorsports, finishing 16th despite piloting a badly damaged No 48 Ally Racing Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 down the stretch.
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Larson had the best Daytona run of his career going for most of the race, leading five laps and scoring an organization-best nine stage points before his No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevy was collected in a crash with nine laps to go, leaving him a couple laps down. He came home 21st, one lap off the pace.
Byron, the winner of February’s DAYTONA 500, was in a perfect position to pull off the season sweep after surviving a couple of prior dustups but was swept up in a multi-car wreck with just two laps to go while running in the top four. The No. 24 Liberty University team finished 27th.
The first melee erupted on the 60th lap with all four Hendrick Motorsports cars taking damage.
Elliott took the hardest hit and was unable to continue. He entered as the only driver in Cup Series history to have completed all but one lap through 24 races.
“I was just trying to get slowed down and then hope nobody hit me from behind and unfortunately, neither one of those things happened,” Elliott said. “So, just a bummer, hate it. We were really just riding, I think everybody was just trying to get to the stage (end) and put yourself in a good position for that pit stop.
“Obviously, going to have to go and have a really good week next week but we’d been pretty lucky these last few plate races, so we were overdue.”
Elliott entered the night second in the regular-season points standings with Larson fourth. Thanks largely to his stage one and two runs, Larson leap frogged back to second and he’ll enter next Sunday’s race at Darlington Raceway, the finale of the regular season, needing to make up 17 points to catch leader Tyler Reddick. Elliott is 18 points back in third.
The Southern 500 will air on USA Network with coverage slated to begin at 6 p.m.