Elliott’s Clever Victory Secures Martinsville Thriller
A Journey from Frustration to Triumph
On March 29, 2015, Chase Elliott’s NASCAR Cup debut for Hendrick Motorsports at Martinsville Speedway was a tough experience. The 19-year-old ended up in 38th place out of 43 cars, 73 laps behind the winner Denny Hamlin. It was a day that left him feeling demoralized.
Fast forward 11 years to March 29, 2026. The same track witnessed a dramatic turnaround for Elliott. This time, he emerged victorious in the Cook Out 400, defeating Hamlin in a thrilling race. Hamlin led 292 of the first 317 laps, but it was a strategic pit call by Elliott’s crew chief, Alan Gustafson, that changed the course of the race.
Gustafson knew that the only chance for victory was through a bold pit strategy. He maintained constant communication with race engineer Luke Mitchell, who was working on the Hendrick campus in Concord, North Carolina.
“He told me it was close, ultimately felt like it was a safer play to one-stop it,” Gustafson said. “I asked him to go do some other calculations based on some different scenarios. He said it’s probably a couple seconds faster. That was just enough for me then to say, yeah, it’s worth it.”
Elliott was on board with the plan because he wanted a pit call that would put him in an offensive position. When Gustafson called Elliott to pit road with 138 laps remaining, he was ninth to Hamlin, who was leading. After green-flag pit stops were completed, Elliott was leading and Hamlin was third. With 100 laps remaining, Elliott had a 3.655-second lead over Hamlin, whose Toyota had 28-lap fresher tires.
Then came a caution for debris with 88 laps remaining, which put Elliott back on the same tire strategy as the rest of the field. There were 19 cars on the lead lap, and Ross Chastain was the only one that didn’t pit during the caution period. When they restarted the race, Chastain was leading, Hamlin second, and Elliott third.
Two laps after the restart, Bubba Wallace’s anger at Carson Hocevar boiled over, and he spun the Spire Motorsports driver in a pack of cars. Twelve cars were collected in the incident, but Wallace and 23XI Racing teammate Riley Herbst were the only two eliminated from the event.
For the race’s final restart, Chastain was leading, Elliott was second, and Hamlin third. When they chose where they wanted to restart, Chastain took the inside, Elliott lined up on the front row on the outside, and Hamlin on the inside. Elliott took the lead for good on lap 332 as Hamlin played the hound chasing the rabbit. Elliott’s victory over Hamlin was by 0.565 seconds.
“I was just trying my best to make sure that I had enough life to work my way through traffic as quickly as I could, as efficiently as I could,” Elliott said. “Throughout the whole last run, I was thinking about that wasn’t the first time we’ve had the lead on the last run of a race here and not won. It’s like, ‘What can I do today to be better,’ kind of take those lessons from the past to improve. Fortunately, felt like I applied some of those things well in that situation.”
Hamlin said he thought he had a loose wheel on his Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota as he chased Elliott.
“Just felt similar to Darlington, so we will check it out,” Hamlin said. “Either way, just there are some races that get away from you in your career, and this is certainly one of them.”
For Elliott, his second Cup Martinsville victory was the 31st for Hendrick Motorsports. It marked the earliest Elliott has ever won in a season. He also became the fourth Hendrick driver to give the organization its first victory of the season at Martinsville. Geoff Bodine did it in 1984, which was the win that kept Hendrick Motorsports from shutting down. Jeff Gordon provided Hendrick with its first win of 2003 in the spring Martinsville race, and Jimmie Johnson repeated the feat in 2009.
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