“Hate to Win Them Like That” – Chase Elliott Felt ‘Terrible’ After Punting Rival To Win NASCAR Race With Hendrick Motorsports Early in His Career

In 2013, rising star Chase Elliott was making his Truck Series debut. During his sixth career race, he was battling with Ty Dillon at the Canadian Tire Motorsports Park. At the time, Dillon was leading Elliott, but the #94 Truck driver was closing in rapidly. They were soon wheel-to-wheel and stayed like that for a long time. However, Dillon had the advantage of the inside line and defended it valiantly.

Heading into the final corner, Elliott snuck up the inside, but Dillon slammed the door in his face. Unfortunately, that resulted in Elliott punting Dillon out of the race. It didn’t help matters that the #3 Truck driver was struggling with fuel at the time, and the #94 truck was lurking. In the end, Dillon finished 17th and Elliott won the race, and both of their teams had plenty of words with each other.

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What did Chase Elliott say about the last lap incident?

At least the Hendrick Motorsports driver had the decency to be apologetic. He said, “Well, we only had so many shots to win these things. I really hate to win them like that, I really do. That’s not how I race and it’s never been how I raced before. I had a shot I was up next to Ty, and I knew that he was going to try and chop me off. Tried to make up the difference, like I said, I don’t like to win like that but sometimes you got to do what you got to do to get to Victory Lane.”

Since that race, he went on to compete in three more Truck Series races that year. Sadly, none of them yielded any wins, and he only reached Victory Lane two more times in the Truck arena. Those wins came in 2017 at Martinsville and in 2018 at the Charlotte Motor Speedway. Beyond that, he has had a successful Cup Series career, winning one title and is in contention for a second.

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