Chase Elliott survives early NASCAR scare during lap 1 wreck at Kansas

Chase Elliott, Ty Dillon, Harrison Burton, and Josh Berry were all involved in a wreck on the very first lap of Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400 race, causing chaos at Kansas Speedway.
Elliott, who had already been forced to start at the back of the pack following an engine change on Saturday, got lucky as his car suffered a minor scrape despite hitting the wall.
Dillon initiated the crash as he went wide on the first lap and collected several cars with him. The wreck ruled Josh Berry out of the race, as he faced a similar issue to Ryan Blaney at Watkins Glen last week.
Blaney was furious when NASCAR ruled him out of the race and didn’t allow his team to assess the damage and attempt to fix the car, and Berry fell victim to the same policy. Elliott was fortunate not to suffer more damage, but it issued some respite after multiple struggles ahead of the race.
We went through all the things that you can check on pit road,” Elliott said after qualifying on Saturday. “Obviously, when you have an engine issue like that, it can be difficult to identify what exactly is broken.
“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.”
It meant that Elliott started dead last on Sunday, handing a major blow to his hopes in the NASCAR Playoffs. Elliott entered Sunday just six points above the cut line as the playoffs enter the second-round stage.
Joey Logano is just behind him in eighth, and Austin Cindric, Daniel Suarez, Alex Bowman, and Chase Briscoe are all on the bubble. To make matters worse, eight of the 12 playoff drivers qualified in the top 10, with Christopher Bell winning the pole.

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Bell is the favorite to be crowned 2024 NASCAR Cup Series champion according to his fellow drivers, who all voted before the playoffs started. All 16 drivers that reached the postseason submitted their votes to The Athletic but were not allowed to vote for themselves.
Eight drivers voted for Bell meaning over 50 percent of the pool believed that the Joe Gibbs Racing driver would win, seeing as he couldn’t vote for himself. The championship race is also being held in Phoenix, a track where Bell has been dominant in recent times.