On one hand, Chase Elliott suffered an initial setback at the start of the Round of 12 for the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs in needing an engine swap after qualifying but on the other hand, it would have been worse if it happened during the race instead.
The Hendrick Motorsports No. 9 discovered an engine ailment during practice on Saturday at Kansas Speedway and will start at the rear of the field.
“We went through all the things that you can check on pit road,” said Elliott, the 2020 Cup Series champion. “Obviously, when you have an engine issue like that, it can be difficult to identify what exactly is broke. For me, I came off Turn 2 and basically just felt like it went down a cylinder, audible change, and lost a lot of power, so I knew something was wrong and came in as quick as I could, just to try to keep from messing it up any worse. But such a bummer. What a terrible time to have something go wrong. The Hendrick engine shop has been so good throughout my career. I don’t even think I’ve filled up a hand of engine issues that we’ve had over the course of my entire career, so I hate it, but would much rather have it happen today than tomorrow.”
To his point, it’s a long race and he can recover, especially at Kansas which is a fast wide track that provides multiple lanes for faster cars to pass. The only real hurdle is that the starting spot might deny
On the other end of the spectrum, Christopher Bell already enjoys a decent margin of error to start this round and by scoring the pole will have the opportunity to score even more stage points to pad his cushion in advance of calamitous races at Talladega and the Charlotte Roval.
Of course, winning could make it all a moot point.
“Win this week,” Bell said when asked how he can mitigate the risk of Talladega and the R I mean, yeah, that’s a great question. There really is no hiding, although it does feel like the fall Talladega race has been a lot calmer than the spring race the last couple years. I don’t know. Superspeedway racing, I’ve been very vocal, it’s not my favorite style of racing and that puts a lot of emphasis on this race tomorrow to try to get some stage points. Obviously, winning would be ideal, but certainly going to Talladega with a big cushion is our number one goal.”
him points by the end of Stage 1.
Ditto Blaney.
“Overall I think that was a decent day. It was nice to make the second round. Qualifying hasn’t been my strong suit here so it was nice to make it to the second round today and start inside the top 10. I thought our race pace in practice earlier was pretty good, so we will see what we have come race time tomorrow. Overall, I think it is a good start to the weekend.”
Denny Hamlin is also hoping to maximize his points at one of his best tracks.
