Camry Chaos Opens Door for Chase Elliott’s Last-Lap Robbery at Kansas

There are no team orders in the Toyota camp. That much is clear.

In Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas Speedway, the second race in the Round of 12 of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs, the Camry contingent squandered a chance at a likely victory despite lining up in the first five positions for a final overtime restart.

It was a conspiracy of desperate circumstances that allowed Chase Elliott to steal a dramatic win—and automatic Round of 8 Playoff spot—in the final corner of the race.

It didn’t matter that the frontrunning Toyotas of Denny Hamlin, Bubba Wallace, Christopher Bell and pole winner Chase Briscoe combined to lead 234 of 273 laps. They didn’t lead the one that mattered.

Bubba Wallace, who led the field to green in the second of two overtimes, was desperate for a victory to keep his championship hopes alive. The same was true of Tyler Reddick, Wallace’s 23XI Racing teammate, who lined up behind the race leader on the inside of the second row.

Denny Hamlin, who restarted on the outside of the third row behind Bell and Briscoe, was desperate to take advantage of an opportunity to achieve the goal that drives him—a 60th career victory and top-10 status on the all-time NASCAR Cup win list.

Elliott, on fresher tires than the rest of the lead pack, was eighth in the running order when caution slowed the first attempt at overtime, but he gave up a row to choose the top lane for the next restart, lining up on the outside of the fifth row.

As soon as Wallace hit the gas for the final overtime, the winning prospects of the Toyotas began to unravel. Reddick gave Wallace a shove forward and then slipped back on the restart, ostensibly looking for a possible run to the inside of his teammate. That option failure to materialize, and Reddick dropped to seventh at the finish.

Wallace nosed ahead of Bell through Turns 1 and 2 on the restart lap, but Bell pulled even and then slightly ahead as the cars reached the backstretch. Driving hard into Turn 3 on the bottom, Wallace regained the edge, but Bell had momentum on the top.

As Bell’s run accelerated, Wallace’s Toyota moved up the track, forcing Bell toward the outside wall and breaking his momentum. Bell slipped to fifth in the running order as Hamlin, Briscoe and Elliott passed him.

At the white flag, Wallace had the lead by a car-length and maintained it through Turns 1 and 2 as Hamlin closed in with a strong run from the top lane. On the backstretch approaching Turn 3, Hamlin steered to the inside of Wallace’s Camry, and when Wallace began to fight back on top, Hamlin’s car drifted up a lane and forced Wallace into the outside wall in Turn 4.

Never mind that Hamlin, who drives for Joe Gibbs Racing, also co-owns the cars of Wallace and Reddick at 23XI.

Running on the bottom, Elliott seized the opportunity, matting the accelerator of his Chevrolet off the corner and bouncing off Hamlin’s Camry before taking the checkered flag. Hamlin, Bell, Briscoe and Wallace finished in that order behind him with some of the least-satisfying top fives of their respective careers.

“It went about how we thought it would,” Bell said after the race, resignation in his voice. “Just people trying to fight for everything they can get and every inch on the race track. It was just pretty much copy/paste. The 23 (Wallace) ran me up, and then Denny ran him up, and the 9 car (Elliott) drove by all of us.

“Obviously, it’s disappointing from a manufacturer’s standpoint. I don’t know what more you can do. We’ve got to race each other with respect, and that’s why we didn’t win tonight.”

Clearly, Wallace was just as unhappy with Hamlin’s tactic in the final corner.

“Hard racing, and boundaries got crossed, and got to figure it out,” said Wallace, who heads for next Sunday’s Round of 12 elimination race at the Charlotte Roval in dire straits, 26 points below the cut line for the next round.

For his part, Hamlin, who was racing without power steering in the final stage, had to fend off attacks on social media. He responded with a post on “X” on Sunday evening.

“Give me a break,” wrote Hamlin, who led 159 laps and swept the first two stages. “I was off the gas 100yds before the 23 let off. I was turning as hard as I could given the aero situation. 11 team deserved that race. It didn’t work out.”

But to quote Clint Eastwood’s character William Munny in the film Unforgiven, “Deserves got nothing to do with it.”

Just ask Chase Elliott.