Chase Elliott wins AutoTrader EchoPark Automotive 400 race at Texas Motor Speedway

Chase Elliott won the AutoTrader EchoPark Automotive 400 at Texas Motor Speedway on Sunday, his first victory in his last 42 races.

William Byron finished second.

Elliott, driving a Chevrolet, was sixth in the NASCAR Sprint Cup standings coming into the race. After the race, Elliott spoke with FOX Sports about the win.

“It couldn’t feel any better, first off thanks to everyone that came out today, you guys are unbelievable,” said Elliott. “Couldn’t be more grateful for this journey and kinda the path that hasn’t always been fun but certainly have enjoyed working with our guys.”

There were multiple cautions, with three coming in a six minute-span near the end of the race — not including a caution that happened just as the race ended.

TCU head football coach Sonny Dykes got the day started as the race’s grand marshal alongside his family.

Kyle Larson dominated the race early until he was hit with a two-lap penalty after a wheel fell off his car on lap 116, after leading for 78 laps. Larson was unable to recover his lead finishing 20th.

Elliott broke a 42-race winless streak by holding off Ross Chastain in the second overtime to win the NASCAR Cup Series’ caution-filled race.

Elliott and Denny Hamlin restarted on the front row twice in the final laps of regulation, but Hamlin brought out the 14th caution in Turn 4 while outside of Elliott’s No. 9 Chevrolet.

After Harrison Burton’s wreck caused the final caution, Elliott won a drag race with Chastain — who also wrecked and finished 32nd — to earn the victory in the 276-lap race, the season’s ninth event.

The victory was the 19th of Elliott’s career and first since he won at Talladega on Oct. 2, 2022.

Brad Keselowski came in second, with William Byron, Tyler Reddick and Daniel Suarez rounding out the top five.

In the NASCAR Cup Series’ lone stop at the 1.5-mile track, Larson started from the point and set out to prove that he was as good as his hot lap in Saturday’s qualifying session.

Larson’s No. 5 Chevrolet dominated most of Stage 1, only giving up the lead briefly to teammate Elliott after pitting. He then got back to the front to win the 80-lap segment over Christopher Bell and Hamlin.

The only incident occurred when seven-time Cup champion Jimmie Johnson, who wrecked during Saturday’s practice, looped his car while working his way through Turns 3 and 4 on Lap 50.

Ryan Blaney, Austin Hill, Ty Gibbs and Chris Buescher decided not to stop and led the restart for the 85-lap Stage 2.

However, as dominant as Larson seemingly was, he could not escape mechanical failure, as his right rear wheel came off on the frontstretch under caution. NASCAR held the Chevrolet on pit road for a two-lap penalty.

Larson got one lap back when Michael McDowell wrecked hard in Turn 4 after racing side-by-side with Chastain with 23 laps left in Stage 2.

Chastain went on to win the segment’s bonus point in his first stage win of 2024.

Reddick’s No. 45 Toyota soon worked its way around Burton’s No. 21 Ford with 88 circuits remaining.

Sam Mayer WINS XFINITY SERIES RACE

Sam Mayer of JR Motorsports won Saturday’s Andy’s Frozen Custard 300 by a minuscule .002 of a second over Ryan Sieg of RSS Racing.

It marked the second-closest margin of victory in series history.

Mayer spoke after the race about winning the race by a razor-thin margin.

“I’ve been on the short end of that stick a couple times so to come out on top is really cool,” Mayer said.

“That’s unreal,” Mayer said. “I was like a second and a half back probably at one point, so to pick up that much time in that little time is certainly unreal and shows how good our Carolina Carports Chevrolet was today. We definitely took a lot of swings at it to get it better, but obviously we led the most important lap there at the end.

The win was Mayer’s first victory of the season and earned him a $100,000 bonus due to the Xfinity Series Dash for Cash program.

Content from Field Level Media contributed to this staff report.