Nashville win by Chase Elliott could make impact in playoffs

LEBANON, Tenn. — With no clear front runners nine races before the Cup playoffs begin, every point, every decision and every move can make an impact on the race for the championship. 

A day before last weekend’s Cup race at Nashville Superspeedway, Denny Hamlin noted how close the competition will be in the playoffs. What Chase Elliott did in Sunday’s race could have reverberations in the fall.

Elliott’s win gives him 13 playoff points, tied with Ross Chastain and William Byron for most this season. Joey Logano and Hamlin both have 12 playoff points. Seven more drivers are within at least seven playoff points of Elliott, Chastain and Byron. 

“I think that this will be without a doubt the most unpredictable playoffs simply because one bad race by a good team, they will not have the playoff points to give them a buffer to get to the next round,” Hamlin said. “There’s liable to be very big teams or even favorites in this championship that will be taken out in the first and second round because they don’t have the big playoff points that our favorites had in the past.

“I’m one one stage win away from being P1 in the playoffs which is crazy considering our season, but it shows when we’re upfront, we get it done, and when we are bad, we’re fully bad. So I think that I’m excited to see where it goes, but I’m also nervous that we better get our (stuff) together at every every racetrack here in the next 10 weeks.”

There were a couple of key moments in Sunday’s race that helped Elliott score his second win of the season.

When the race resumed near halfway, Elliott restarted 15th. He quickly moved to ninth after the restart and finished fourth in the stage.

“I felt like that was kind of the moment in the race I was like, ‘All