Race 12 - Dover
Pole Winner: #18 Kyle Busch
Race Winner: #9 Chase Elliott
Pool Standings:
1. G Money -962. asleep at the wheel -117
3. Bigwood - 126
4. Last Lappers - 129
5. Intimidator - 130
What looked like a Stewart-Haas Racing victory parade for much of Sunday afternoon ended in a wild overtime scramble, with Chase Elliott taking the checkered flag at the monster mile.
On considerably older tires, Elliott pulled ahead and cleared runner-up Denny Hamlin through Turns 1 and 2 after a restart on Lap 403 finished .265 seconds ahead of Hamlin.
With the victory — his second of the season and the second of his career — Elliott punched his ticket into the Round of 8 in the playoffs.
The move that won the race was the decision to keep Elliott on the track with tires that were more than 50 laps old, when most of the other lead-lap cars opted to pit on Lap 393 after Clint Bowyer slammed into the Turn 4 wall one lap earlier.
Elliott led the field to a restart on Lap 397, but on the backstretch during that circuit, Aric Almirola nicked the outside wall and started a chain-reaction collision that also damaged the cars of fellow playoff drivers Brad Keselowski, Alex Bowman, Martin Truex Jr. and Ryan Blaney.
NASCAR red-flagged the race, and Elliott outran Hamlin in an overtime that extended the event four laps beyond its scheduled distance. The only laps Elliott led were the last 11.
Kevin Harvick, on the other hand, was out front for 286 of the 404 laps and was the clear class of the field. Harvick swept the first two stagesand appeared headed for another perfect afternoon, but he had to return to pit road under green for an extra tire change after a flying lug nut knocked the valve stem off Harvick’s left rear tire.
Harvick regained the lap he lost under a debris caution called on Lap 339, but he couldn’t work his way back to the front before the race ended.
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