Pluck that guitar, Clyde!
Chase Elliot survived a ridiculously long weather delay (like, way too long. People have to work, you know!), a terrible car at the start, an attack from JGR guys and a predictable late warning to win his second race of the season for a (un)packed house in Nashville†
A few wins, a ton of playoff points and the overall points lead with nine races left in the regular season…not a bad year for the 2020 champion!
“We’ve had a pretty rough month and a month and a half, so just nice to get back on track,” said the always grounded Elliott after the race. “Winning is always huge, but to do it in a really cool city like Nashville is even better. I’m looking forward to that guitar.”
EADGBE, chase!
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Chase Elliott revives after Nashville weather slows down
Let’s start here…no one saw this one coming, right?
Chase was pretty bad at this spot last season, had some bad luck this past month and was frankly pathetic for the first 100 laps or so on Sunday.
However, Mother Nature gave the ‘old No. 9 team a few hours to regroup. And when the race finally started again (should anyone else hit the US channel?), Chase was fast — really, really fast.
“I think we really just talked about our balance, honestly,” Clyde said of the rain delay. “We just talked about where we were at the start of the day, what we did in practice on Friday, how we got into the position we were in to start the event, why we chose that and why it didn’t work.
“We tried to diagnose that as best we could, make a decision which way we wanted to go, and we did, and luckily it was the right decision.”
Kurt Busch says he’s with Elliott. ‘should have thrown fenders’
Okay, let’s talk about that late reboot.
Chase led the field back to green with five to go and took the high side with Kurt Busch to his left. The two even went into Turn 1, but the Napa Chevy pulled away shortly after and rode to the win.
Was that your best work, Kurt? Be honest!
“I grew weak for him,” Busch replied. “I should have thrown some fenders and moved some momentum.”
wait what? come again.
“I wanted to throw some fenders, but I couldn’t get the job done,” Busch said. “Everyone will smile, but I’m letting them down. I should have come up with a better plan.”
All right then!
Bubba Wallace goes on a rant after bad pit stop
Thanks for the insight, Kurt. Now let’s go to teammate Bubba Wallace!
“Leave the (expletive) alone, dude. Don’t talk to me the whole (expletive) race,” Bubba radioed to his crew after a bad stop essentially ended what had been a surprisingly strong day.
“You (expletives),” Bubba added.
Yaks. Wondering how that Monday morning debrief went?
Finally, before we get to Road America, let’s get Kyle Busch’s thoughts after a strong 21st place!
“These (Next Gen cars) are the biggest pieces (expletive) in traffic,” Rowdy said.
okay okay!
NASCAR, Road America and Fourth of July
Now that we’ve made it through the NSFW portion of the week, let’s head west to what may have been the best weekend of the year this past summer.
For those who don’t remember, Road America gave us some of the best footage of 2021, with fans flocking to the popular Wisconsin road track to watch (spoiler alert!) Chase Elliott win in the Cup Series return.
From the scenic views, to the fans, to the racing. it all felt good. This guy was a skeptic at first (and a Daytona homer), but I’ll be the first to admit that Elkhart Lake is exactly where NASCAR should be for the Independence Day weekend.
Happy birthday, America. Let’s go racing!
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Bubba Wallace Loses It, Chase Elliott Plays Guitar, Kurt Busch Goes Soft