Not satisfied with the pole for the Daytona 500, Chase Elliott held off Joey Logano coming to the line to score the victory at Daytona International Speedway in the XFINITY Series. Elliott, at 20 years, two months and 23 days, also became the youngest XFINITY Series winner at Daytona.
The driver of the No. 88 JR Motorsports Chevrolet held off the No. 22 Team Penske Ford to win the PowerShares QQQ 300 at Daytona International Speedway. When I say held off, I mean beating and banging to the line. Logano dented the right rear corner panel of Elliott’s car while getting pinched to the outside wall.
“The plan was to make the move off of four and going to the top he blocked the first move and wiggled to the bottom and back to the top. At that point, it is a little late and then we touched each other and that is the killer,” Logano said. “Once we had that touch it killed our momentum and I couldn’t pull him back enough to get in front of him.”
Team owner, Dale Earnhardt Jr., had nothing but praise for Elliott.
“Chase obviously did what he had to do there at the end of the race,” Earnhardt said. “I thought that was very gutsy to be able to really put such an aggressive block on the 22. He did what he had to do to keep the guy behind him, and it won him the race.
“I’m proud of Chase. It’s such a cool thing to be a part of his career. He’s going to do some amazing stuff in his career, and it’s awesome to be a little part of it.”
Kasey Kahne rounded out the podium in third in his No. 5 JR Motorsports Chevrolet. Elliott Sadler finished fourth in his No. 1 JR Motorsports Chevrolet. Austin Dillon rounded out the top-five in his No. 2 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet.
Darrell Wallace Jr. finished sixth in his No. 6 Roush Fenway Racing Ford while Brandon Jones came home seventh in his No. 33 RCR Chevrolet. Daniel Suárez finished seventh in his No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota followed by Blake Koch in ninth in his No. 11 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet. Brendan Gaughan rounded out the top-10 in his No. 62 RCR Chevrolet.
The race lasted two hours, one minute and 13 seconds at an average speed of 194.898 mph. There were 19 lead changes among nine different leaders. It was slowed down four times for 17 laps.
Complete Finishing Order:
1) 88 – Chase Elliott
2) 22 – Joey Logano
3) 5 -Kasey Kahne
4) 1 -Elliott Sadler
5) 2 – Austin Dillon
6) 6 – Darrell Wallace Jr
7) 33 – Brandon Jones
8) 19 – Daniel Suarez
9) 11 – Blake Koch
10) 62 – Brendan Gaughan
11) 98 – Aric Almirola
12) 7 – Justin Allgaier
13) 3 -Ty Dillon
14) 28 – Dakoda Armstrong
15) – 51 Jeremy Clements
16) – 16 Ryan Reed
17) 5 – John Wes Townley
18) 44 – David Starr
19) 87 – Joe Nemechek
20) 39 – Ryan Sieg
21 ) 24 – Matt Tifft
22) 4 – Ross Chastain
23) 18 – Bobby Labonte
24) 78 – B J McLeod
25) 43 – Jeb Burton
27) 48 – Brennan Poole
28) 25 – Chris Cockrum
29) 93 – Scott Lagasse Jr
30) 0 – Eric McClure
31 )20 – Erik Jones
32) 52 – Joey Gase
33) 7 – Ray Black Jr
34) 42 – Kyle Larson
35) 14 – Benny Gordon
36) 89 – Morgan Shepherd
37) 17 – Jeff Green
38) 90 – Martin Roy
39) 85 – Bobby Gerhart
40) 1 – Ryan Preece