Chase Elliott better watch out for locusts. NASCAR gods are unhappy with popular driver

Chase Elliott had it.

He was there, speeding to victory in the Coca-Cola 600, so far ahead that even his spotter had gone mostly silent. His crew prepared for celebration. After grinding through nearly six hours worth of racing at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Elliott was a single minute from winning.

And then it happened — again.

For the second time in a four-day span, Elliott got blindsided by a racing incident that wasn’t his fault. This time it actually came from a Hendrick Motorsports racing teammate. William Byron, far back in the field, cut a tire and spun out.

“That’s got to be a joke!” Elliott said on his radio, along with a few unprintable things.

It wasn’t a joke. It meant that Elliott — practically on cruise control until Byron’s wreck brought out the final caution flag and bunched up the field again — had to win the race at Charlotte Motor Speedway all over again.

And he couldn’t.

Hamstrung by a questionable call by crew chief Alan Gustafson to pit for four tires following that last caution, Elliott didn’t restart from the front and couldn’t make up the difference in the two-lap overtime period.

Instead, Brad Keselowski won and Jimmie Johnson finished second (Johnson was later disqualified for failing his post-race inspection). Neither of them had pitted at the end. Elliott was left with a third-place finish and a bushel of what-might-have-beens. He was moved up to second after Johnson got DQ-ed. That was no real consolation, though. In racing, there is a yawning gap between first place and everything else.

“We were a lap-and-a-half away from winning the Coca-Cola 600,” a downcast Elliott said later.

On Wednesday, Kyle Busch had wrecked Elliott in the final laps at Darlington Raceway. Elliott was contending for the lead when Busch made a nearly inexplicable mistake for a driver of his caliber and sideswiped Elliott.

The resulting spin knocked Elliott out of the race. He fired a public middle finger at Busch right after that. But neither flipping the bird nor Busch’s immediate apology for his mistake did Elliott any good.

So Sunday night made two potential wins for Elliott in four days in the Carolinas, both of them swept away by the gods of racing misfortune.

It makes you wonder what the next NASCAR Cup race Wednesday night at Charlotte Motor Speedway will plague Elliott with — locusts, perhaps? Millions of cicadas are emerging in North Carolina after spending the past 17 years underground. Who’s going to be surprised if a few get into Elliott’s engine?

‘I can’t rewind time’

Elliott was asked early Monday morning after the Coke 600 — which was run without fans for the first time in its 60-year history due to COVID-19 — what he planned to do next.

“Just try again,” he said. “I mean, there is really no other option. I can’t rewind time.”

It is difficult to feel too sorry for Elliott, 24, for too long. He is the son of NASCAR Hall of Fame driver Bill Elliott. Chase Elliott has big-time talent and a famous last name, and the combination of those two factors helped him leapfrog his way to NASCAR’s top level quicker than almost anyone else has. He’s still among the Top 5 in points this year and looks like a real contender for the 2020 championship. He’s healthy. He makes a whole lot of money.

But still — the guy is having a run of some serious bad luck. You have to feel for him.

About the only thing that Chase’s father Bill never won was the Coca-Cola 600, stock-car racing’s longest race. A win Sunday would have given Chase something that “Awesome Bill from Dawsonville” never had.

Gustafson’s decision to pit a driver two laps from the finish line was a curious one. Keselowski was certainly happy to see it, but allowed that it was a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation for Gustafson. If Elliott hadn’t pitted, some of the drivers right behind him would have and then tried to chase him down on fresh tires.

“When you are leading the race like that, people behind you are going to do the exact opposite of what you do,” Elliott said.

Raced Kyle Busch cleanly

Elliott wasn’t surprised when the line of cars immediately behind him mostly stayed out on the track. By the time his pit stop was over, he had dropped from first to 11th. He sprinted all the way back to third during the overtime period, but never came close to passing Johnson or Keselowski in overtime. He needed another caution flag to get another chance, but you know how Elliott’s luck is going these days.

Interestingly, Busch was one of the first to console Elliott after the race, saying he felt bad for him. Elliott had raced Busch cleanly for the entire 600-plus miles. With several chances to do so, he never tried to tap Busch into the wall in a “turnabout is fair play” sort of way (although one day, that might still be coming).

On Sunday, though, it was obvious Elliott had decided that the best way to show up Busch and everyone else was simply to beat them all. In a race that started at about 6:30 p.m. Sunday, included a 68-minute rain delay and didn’t end until slightly after midnight Monday, Elliott was seconds away from doing that.

And then Byron spun. Elliott pitted. Holding 20 in a game of blackjack, Elliott saw the dealer draw a five-card “21.”’

And so Chase Elliott went home again — unable to rewind time, as he said, but undoubtedly wishing he could at least make Wednesday night’s Cup race at Charlotte Motor Speedway hurry up and get here.