Chase Elliott wins YellaWood 500; locals part of pit crews
Chase Elliott celebrates his victory in Sunday's YellaWood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway. The win was Elliott's fifth of the season. (Allen Wilcox)
Chase Elliott could have been plotting as he was zooming toward the end of the YellaWood 500 on Sunday. Knowing that he’s done well at the next race in the NASCAR Cup Series, he could have thrown caution to the wind at Talladega Superspeedway.
But that wasn’t the case.
“I was just trying to think in the moment as to what I felt like I could do, be smart and give myself a shot to win today,” he said. “I wish I could piece things together that far ahead, but I just don’t have it in me.”
Confetti rains on Chase Elliott following his victory in Sunday’s YellaWood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway. (Solomon Crenshaw Jr. / Alabama NewsCenter)
What Elliott did have in him Sunday was a victory – his fifth of the season – that allows him to relax as he heads to Charlotte Motor Speedway Road Course for the Bank of America Roval 400. Sunday’s win stamped his ticket into the next round of the NASCAR Cup Playoffs.
Elliott took the lead on the final lap, the last of a Cup Series season-high 57 lead changes in the race. He edged Ryan Blaney, the runner-up, by 0.046 seconds.
The only thing that’s certain, the victor said of races at Talladega, is uncertainty.
“I feel like I’ve been doing this long enough to know and understand that the roller coaster that is racing is gonna roll on,” he said. “You either learn to ride it during the good days and during the bad days, too, or you don’t. That’s just part of the deal. You just try to ride the wave.
“I had a bad week last week and had a good week this week,” Elliott continued. “Obviously, it’s great to move on to the next round and to get six more bonus points. All those things are fantastic, and we’re super proud of that. But this deal can humble you.”
Like when he crashed in each of the first two rounds of the playoffs.
“We can go to the Round of Eight and crash again like we did the first two rounds or you can go in there and maybe have a really good first race,” Elliot said. “I don’t know. You just show up prepared and do the best you can and figure it out from there.”
The YellaWood 500 was an atypical Talladega race. Racers and fans alike come to the track expecting “the big one,” the huge wreck that engulfs many of the cars in the field.
That didn’t happen this time, with only one wreck that spared all but Harrison Burton, Noah Gragson, Justin Allgaier and Ty Gibbs.
“It was certainly a bit tamer than I expected,” winning crew chief Alan Gustafson said. “But I kind of expected it maybe not to be the typical four-wide just craziness because … the cars just don’t seem to generate the performance and the huge rounds like they did. It’s more just about that kind of steady, seesaw momentum.”
Alabama crew members
Sunday’s race field included three teams with Alabama connections. Pinson native and former Samford football player R.J. Barnette was a tire carrier for the Hendrick Motorsports No. 5 car. J.R. Norris, a Hueytown native and soccer player at John Carroll High, was the car chief for the Spire Motorsports No. 77.
Each of their teams finished the race. Hoover’s Travis Dwayne Ogles is a front tire changer for Gibbs’ No. 23 car that was knocked out in the wreck.
Barnette said he definitely took the road less traveled for a Samford student majoring in secondary education. He wound up on the racing path after having an internship at Hendrick Motorsports that trained pit crew members.
“I didn’t know that they trained similar to how football players train,” the Pinson Valley High alumnus said. “That’s kind of when it sparked my interest that maybe that’s something that I would like to pursue. I basically moved to Charlotte, North Carolina, the day after graduation and started basically begging for jobs.”
Barnette’s mother, Sharon Nelson, got to see her son at work as she and others stood near the No. 5 pit. And after following her son’s football career, she now enjoys watching NASCAR.
“It’s a lot of fun when you actually come to one,” she said. “A lot of people have never been, and when you come it’s the whole experience. Anything my kids are involved in enhances my interest, for sure.”
Norris’ NASCAR journey began behind the wheel, following in the footsteps of Hueytown racing legends “Red” Farmer, the Allison family and Neil Bonnett. Norris would rather have continued driving but became a mechanic and ultimately a car chief.
“I’d always worked on (cars) myself, so I just kind of transitioned,” Norris said. “I just kind of transitioned into being a mechanic and started at the bottom and worked my way up to being a car chief.”
Barnette said his aim each week is getting the car to the end of the race with the best finish possible.
“You just want to finish here,” he said. “Hopefully we don’t see that, but this place is known for wadding some cars up.”
