Chase Elliott roared to the front during a wild, two-lap shootout in overtime Sunday afternoon to win the Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas Speedway in Kansas City, Kan. — the middle race of the NASCAR Cup Series’ Round of 12 playoffs.
After two cautions, highlighted by Zane Smith’s No. 38 Ford riding the wall in Turns 3 and 4 on two wheels and flipping over twice, Elliott made his move from fifth. He banged doors off the final turn with leader Denny Hamlin, who ran Bubba Wallace’s No. 23 up the track.
Elliott won the race back to the line and beat Hamlin by 0.609 seconds for his second victory to advance to the Round of 8.
The Toyotas of Christopher Bell, Chase Briscoe and Wallace rounded out the top five.
After polesitter Briscoe lost the lead to Hamlin, Kyle Larson got into the mix and was leading when Cody Ware’s No. 51 Ford suffered tire failure and hit the wall coming off Turn 3 on Lap 56 for the first caution.
Running on older tires than the Hendrick Motorsports cars of Larson and Elliott, Hamlin kept his No. 11 Toyota out front and beat Larson, Elliott, Bell and Ross Chastain for the top segment points.
In a second stage that featured a lone caution for a frontstretch wreck between Ryan Preece and John Hunter Nemechek, Bell found the point early and led by under two seconds at the 120-lap mark. However, Hamlin moved past his JGR teammate, managed the top spot and beat Bell’s No. 20 by about 3/10ths of a second for his sixth stage win this season.
With 94 laps remaining, Hamlin and Elliott went side-by-side down the backstretch, but the Hendrick driver edged ahead for the lead with Hamlin and Bell within earshot.
The race’s biggest incident occurred as cars stacked up on the Lap 51 restart heading to Turn 1. The Team Penske Fords of Joey Logano and Austin Cindric were involved, with Cindric’s No. 2 being turned and hitting the wall.
Hamlin had a one-second lead over Bell with 15 laps to go and appeared to be headed to win his 60th NASCAR Cup Series race, but the seventh caution (for debris on the 1.5-mile track) flew with 15 circuits left. Hamlin’s jackman then had trouble, and the No. 11 restarted sixth with Bell leading.
