Elliott Ends Round of 12 with Roval Victory

 Originally written for CLNS Media.

Chase Elliott won the Bank of America ROVAL 400 from the Charlotte Motor Speedway Road Course to win his fourth-straight road course race.

Elliott was a favorite going into the race after winning last year’s event at the Roval, and he was able to pull away from the field on a late restart to pick up his third victory of the year.

Already in a good position to make the next round of the Playoffs, Elliott was able to lock himself into the next round with the victory and pick up five additional Playoff Points for the next round.

Elliott said he wasn’t focused on his points position heading into the Round of 12 finale.

“I feel like you start playing the points game and you can get yourself in trouble,” Elliott said.  “Best way to get to the next round is to win, so hopefully we can do something with it.”

Elliott had a dominant car in 2019, and drove up through the field after an accident while leading. 

This year, Elliott said his team brought an even better car than the one he took to victory lane last year.

“I tweaked on some small things and got a little better than what I was here last year, which was good,” Elliott said.  “I feel like road courses have been fortunate to us the last few trips.”

The race saw the bottom four drivers eliminated from Playoff contention.  Kyle Busch, Austin Dillon, Clint Bowyer and Aric Almirola each saw their championship hopes come to an end.

Busch, the reigning Cup Series Champion, said his team just continued to be off throughout the Playoffs like they had been during the year.

“Nothing’s played out or has been on our side,” Busch said.  “Terrible year for me, but as other sports greats would say, there’s many other drivers that would love to have a year that we’re having.”

“I knew this round was going to be trouble with the year that we had, and I was right.”

Unofficial results:

1. Chase Elliott

2. Joey Logano

3. Erik Jones

4. Kurt Busch

5. Ryan Blaney

6. William Byron

7. Martin Truex Jr.

8. Alex Bowman

9. Cole Custer

10. Clint Bowyer

11. Kevin Harvick

12. Tyler Reddick

13. Jimmie Johnson

14. Ryan Preece

15. Denny Hamlin

16. Aric Almirola

17. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

18. Brad Keselowski

19. Austin Dillon

20. Chris Buescher

21. Bubba Wallace

22. Matt DiBenedetto

23. Ty Dillon

24. Christopher Bell

25. Daniel Suarez

26. Gray Gaulding

27. Corey LaJoie

28. Quin Houff

29. James Davison

30. Kyle Busch

31. Ryan Newman

32. Michael McDowell

33. Josh Bilicki

34. Matt Kenseth

35. JJ Yeley

36. John Hunter Nemechek

37. Brennan Poole

38. Timmy Hill

Photos courtesy Jared C. Tilton (Getty Images)