No doubt a bettor brave enough to take Chase Elliott with one lap left in overtime in last year’s Sept 28 race at Kansas Speedway could have gotten long odds.
Elliott took the white flag in fifth place, behind the Toyotas of Bubba Wallace, Denny Hamlin, Chase Briscoe and Christopher Bell. Wallace pulled out to a lead of a half-car-length, with Hamlin in pursuit.
Hamlin steered his No. 11 Camry to the inside of Wallace’s car and forced Wallace wide through the final two corners. That allowed Elliott to dive to the inside of
both Toyotas and steal the win for Hendrick Motorsports and Chevrolet.
“It certainly played a factor, kind of in the manufacturer battle as well, right?,” Hamlin said on Saturday before NASCAR Cup Series practice for Sunday’s AdventHealth 400 at Kansas (2 p.m. ET on FOX, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). “I mean, you go from winning one to now your competition actually won.
“There were definitely a lot of negatives to the way that race ended, but it certainly was I just, I feel like, I was trying to go for it, certainly, and used a little bit too much aggression, for sure, in Turn 3.
“But overall, you’re going to have that in racing. When you have teammates, manufacturer guys that you all share information with, we’re going to always be right around each other. So sometimes those racing incidents happen in one out of 20 times.”
Hamlin heads the list of winners at Kansas with four victories, but he’s shocked at his recent failures to find Victory Lane.
“For the last six years, if someone else wins a Kansas race, I’m just trying to figure out how we didn’t win, because we’re always just so fast here,” Hamlin said.“We found 10 to 12 different ways to not win here, and I thought I saw the stat this week that there has only been… I think (Kyle) Larson’s been the only repeat winner here in the last 11 races, and it was like, the fact that we haven’t is just criminal. So, hopefully we can change that.”
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