Chase Elliott had an eventful but shortened race in the Cook Out 400 at Richmond, which was won by Austin Dillon before a shock injury admission.

Elliott was one of just a handful of cars to opt not to pit under green flag conditions in Stage 1, with crew chief Alan Gustafson opting to save an extra set of tires for later in the race in a bold call.

But the No.9 team never got to see if that move would pay off, as he found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time with a hard crash on lap 199 that had major implications. 

Elliott took a big hit but fortunately climbed out of his car and was checked and released from the infield care center.

Prior to the crash, his problems started at the end of Stage 1 when he was given a penalty by NASCAR for vehicle interference after entering his pit box very close to Chase Briscoe’s No.19 crew.

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He later explained his perspective of the penalty, insisting there was no bad intention but acknowledging he got “too aggressive” and was keen to watch it back. 

“I’ll have to go back and watch it. It seems like that’s happened a lot lately, and it’s a really tough position,” Elliott explained.

“Especially when you’re directly behind the car that’s pitting right behind your stall, because the front tire carriers are carrying two tires and you get in a position where if I get too far over to the right, I’m going to be stopped and he’s not going to be able to get out of his box.

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“And obviously I’m not trying to hit his guys. I would never intentionally do that or try and make him get further left, that’s not my intent at all.

“I just don’t want to get in a position where I’m angled so far in that now I’ve blocked him in and we have a bad angle for our stop.

“So all I was trying to do is just take as much room as I could to get back straight and not cause another issue at the end of the pitstop. 

“But it was nothing beyond that. I’ll have to go and watch it. Obviously I got too aggressive with it, but it was an unfortunate situation.” 

Regarding his crash, Elliott admitted: “I have no idea what happened. Obviously, I saw them crashing, and we were all just stacking up trying to get stopped and then after the wreck was over.

“I thought we were done wrecking. I was just trying to squeak by, and I guess Kyle (Busch) just didn’t know I was to his left, and we were, so I hate that. 

“We had a good start to the night, and it just slowly unraveled until it finally fell apart. So hopefully we get on a better stretch starting next week. … I think Kyle just didn’t know that we were trying to squeeze by the wreck on the bottom. 

“He was kind of angled back towards the bottom of the racetrack, and I was just coming through. It’s just unfortunate.”