Vegas near-miss leaves Elliott with mixed feelings

Sunday afternoon in Las Vegas did not pay out the jackpot to Chase Elliott, but it still had him feeling pretty good with the end result.

Elliott finished second at Las Vegas Motor Speedway after coming on strong during the final stint of the Pennzoil 400. Not only was it a season-best result for Elliott and his Hendrick Motorsports team, but it also tied a career-best at the 1.5-mile facility from the 2021 season.

The latter was the last time Elliott had finished in the top five in Las Vegas before Sunday.

“It was definitely better there toward the end than where we started the run,” Elliott said of his NAPA Chevrolet. “I thought there might be an opportunity and I knew he (Denny Hamlin) was starting to get tight there at the end of runs. As bummed as I am to come up that close to a win, I have to kind of bring myself back to a reality check and just how much better we ran today than we’ve been running. I’m balancing that.”

It came down to two veterans in the final 50 laps. Hamlin took the lead off the final restart as Elliott, who was third, made his run to the runner-up spot. But the gap was never small enough for Elliott to mount a challenge on the race lead, as Hamlin appeared to manage as he needed.

“Obviously, these things are hard to win,” Elliott said. “We had a great opportunity to do it, but I’m really proud of the effort throughout the week in preparation and yesterday and fighting through a not-so-good day, and getting up there in the mix with the guys that win a lot of these races anymore. So, really proud of that. It was a really solid day. Obviously, bummed to come up that short

“Wish I could have pieced together a little better couple of laps toward the end, trying to be as tidy as I could be. But he did a really good job. Congrats to him for holding his ground there and putting together a good five or six (laps) because it looked like a handful. Yeah, I don’t know. Mixed feelings.”

Adding to those mixed feelings were that, although it ended with a tad of disappointment, Elliott had showed fairly consistent performance throughout. After having qualified 15th, Elliott had a 6.6 average running position and was top 10 in both stages.