Denny Hamlin’s $50,000 Loss Has Fans Split on Chase Elliott’s “You Go for the Win or Don’t” Approach That Costed a Driver the Win Last Year

The NASCAR Cup Series next moves on to Atlanta in Round 5. While Hendrick Motorsports have had an impressive start, a historic penalty from the governing body recently marred them. It will ache them to not have Chase Elliott at his home track on Sunday. Sidelined with a leg injury, one of his last year’s wins has resurfaced and moreover, his comments following the victory have made it look controversial.

The fans share contrasting opinions looking back at Elliott’s approach to victory last year. Interestingly, this deprived another driver of winning the race. Having seen what happened between Denny Hamlin and Ross Chastain recently, it makes one wonder if the HMS star was guilty of his style of play.

Fans in split with Chase Elliott’s approach to winning comments drawing similarities with Denny Hamlin’s Phoenix tussle

Elliott made history last year as after almost 30 years a Georgia-born driver won the Atlanta race in July. With just two laps to go, the 2020 Cup Series champion took the lead by allegedly throwing a block on Corey LaJoie. This resulted in the Spire Motorsports driver dash against the outside wall before he spun down to the inside. It was a move that earned him the victory but didn’t go well with many and more so after his post-race comments.

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After the win, Elliott said, “This is obviously home for me, home to a lot of great fans who made a lot of noise today. We all know what to do either go for the win or don’t. I’m going to choose option A every day of the week.”

While it is debatable about Elliott’s intent here, it can be interpreted either way. After all, the intent is what got Hamlin in trouble lately. However, seeing this video resurface, it divided the fans with their opinions on social media.

Some of them felt that LaJoie was hard done here, especially when he deserved to win. They felt that it was a shrewd move from Elliott and certainly not that should be appreciated.

“LaJoie should’ve won that race”

“Justice for Corey LaJoie”

“So wrecking LaJoie ok”

On the other hand, many favored the 27-year-old with their own reasoning.

“Still wild people stand by saying Chase wrecked Lajoie. Hell, Corey said he didn’t wreck him and said he’d have thrown the block too.”

“I don’t know why everyone saying he wrecked him when on the replay, LaJoie ran into the back of him. Elliott didn’t turn right on him very much.”

“Still don’t see anything wrong with it. If Dale Sr or Jr. did it, everyone would’ve been praising it!”

“I open the comments everytime there’s a Chase Elliott post and I’ll never ever see more people crying over stupid shit”

All said and done, it was a win that Elliott would have cherished. However, there was one thing that upset him about the win.

Chase Elliott reveals the “bummer” after registering a historic win at Atlanta

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Irrespective of the controversy around the victory, winning at home has a special feeling to it. However, Elliott was left sad by one thing after the triumph in Atlanta.

Interestingly, he was on Corey LaJoie’s podcast Stacking Pennies where they discussed the race. It was then that he said, “I wish my family had been there. That was the first Atlanta race that they missed, in probably ever. That was a bit of a bummer, but there’s something different about it. When you have a track that close to home and you kind of feel the energy be a little different.”

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It only gets sadder this time around with Elliott not able to participate. Having said that, he will be rooting strongly for his teammates to have a successful outing.