By CHARLES ODUM

HAMPTON, Ga. (AP) — Chase Elliott couldn’t have picked a better setting for a drought-breaking win.

Fans roared in approval after Elliott, the home-state favorite, passed Brad Keselowski on the final lap to end a 44-race drought by winning the NASCAR Cup Series at Atlanta on Saturday night.

Elliott’s 20th career victory pushed him to second place in the Cup Series points race, putting him in prime position to return to the top of the NASCAR world after winning his first championship in 2020.

Elliott earned a spot in the NASCAR playoffs with his first victory since April 2024 at Texas. He said he’ll always remember the win as a career highlight, in part because of the ovation from fans who chanted “Chase! Chase! Chase!”

Elliott, a Dawsonville, Georgia, native, climbed into the stands at EchoPark Speedway, formerly Atlanta Motor Speedway, to celebrate with the fans.

“It was, truthfully, a pretty surreal moment,” Elliott said. “Something I’ll remember for the rest of my life. … Saturday night under the lights, been a while since we won, just getting ourselves a win and advancing up on the playoff thing.”

It was his first Atlanta win since 2022.

Elliott has 594 points, 37 behind Hendrick Motorsports teammate William Byron, who has 631. A third Hendrick Motorsports driver, Kyle Larson, is third.

Another Hendrick driver, Alex Bowman, played a key role in Elliott’s comeback win. Bowman, who finished third, gave Elliott a push and then helped block Keselowski on the final lap.

“I’m happy for the 9 team,” Bowman said. “It’s a big win for him in his hometown. … I’m glad to have a Hendrick car in victory lane. I wish it was us.”

Elliott said he’ll try to repay the favor by helping Bowman join the other three Hendrick drivers in the playoffs.

“I recognize that he gave me a great shove,” Elliott said. “I recognize that he took his run on Brad, too, to try to get himself to second, which ultimately helped me as well.

“Yeah, those are all things that I remember.”

Elliott advanced to the second round of NASCAR’s new In-Season Challenge, a five-race, bracket-style tournament. With the field cut from 32 to 16 drivers, Elliott will be paired against John Hunter Nemechek when the Cup Series moves to the Chicago Street Race next Sunday.

A $1 million prize awaits the winner, and Elliott’s odds improved after Atlanta wrecks knocked out the top two seeds, Denny Hamlin and Chase Briscoe.

Elliott wouldn’t be the first family member to win a $1 million bonus. In 1985 his father, Bill Elliott, became the first winner of the Winston Million as a reward for claiming wins in three of the circuit’s top four races at the time. The bonus earned the elder Elliott the nickname “Million Dollar Bill.”

Now the younger Elliott is a strong contender to become first in line for another $1 million prize.

“It’d be a really cool thing to win for sure and hope it works out that way,” Chase Elliott said.

Elliott’s victory drought came after he needed surgery to repair a broken tibia in his left leg suffered in a snowboarding accident and missed six races in 2023. He said the support of longtime crew chief Alan Gustafson was “in large part” responsible for helping him retain his confidence and reclaim his winning form.

Gustafson said the win was more important for the 2025 playoff race than for ending the victory drought.

“The points were getting tight for the playoffs, for sure,” Gustafson said. “I think that’s probably the biggest thing. I think all the cars contending to win, I don’t think any of them had won. I think that’s probably the biggest thing we needed was that cushion.”

Saturday night’s win was Elliott’s third consecutive top-five finish.

“When you’re fortunate enough to climb the mountain and be able to stand at the top of the mountain with someone, that’s an incredible achievement, right?” Elliott said. “That’s something that (Gustafson) and I will always cherish and remember that we did that together.

“For me it’s really, really important to climb that mountain with the same people that we did the first time and know that we never quit on each other. That’s just a really important piece of the puzzle for me.”

___

AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing

It was a hot start to summer in Chicago for our legacy sports teams. Up was down, down was up and our downtown streets buckled just in time for the Chicago Street Race.

The first half of the Chicago Cubs season was like a good book you couldn’t put down.

Amazing comebacks, plenty of runs and the daily Pete Crow-Armstrong Show. Wrigley Field was packed, and for the first time since the Theo Epstein rebuild, there was reason to believe in the team’s future.

Whether the second half can match the start depends largely on whether Epstein’s replacement as president of baseball operations, Jed Hoyer, can fill some rotation holes and shore up the bench. Hoyer fixed a shaky bullpen early in the season with low-key, underrated moves and now faces another obstacle.

When Marquee Sports Network analyst Cliff Floyd pulled out a tiny red flag recently to signal the Cubs had starting pitching concerns, it signaled two things:

The Cubs do have starting pitching concerns, and Floyd has a guaranteed contract.

Through the fog of a team-owned network that often serves as a marketing tool for all things Cubs, Floyd’s flag stood out. It’s obvious to everyone that Hoyer needs to do something. But when Marquee joins in, you know it’s serious.

The return of Shota Imanaga on Thursday in St. Louis after seven weeks rehabbing a hamstring injury was a shot in the arm for the Cubs, who were 12-12 in June entering Saturday’s game against the Houston Astros, slowing to a light jog after sprinting for the first two months.

But it doesn’t bail out the rest of the rotation, which is in a state of flux with Ben Brown back at Triple-A Iowa. Only Matthew Boyd and Jameson Taillon are assured of keeping their spots behind Imanaga, and Taillon has allowed an MLB-worst 2.08 home runs per nine innings. Rookie Cade Horton was roughed up Friday night in Houston, bluntly saying, “I got my ass kicked.”

Saturday night’s starter, Colin Rea, allowed seven runs on 11 hits against the Seattle Mariners last week, serving up four home runs. True, the wind was blowing out at Wrigley, but it has blown in plenty of times for Rea, whom left-handed hitters are salivating over with a .952 OPS against the right-hander.

If someone told you in March the White Sox would have a better rotation than the Cubs at the midway point, you would’ve laughed or cried, depending on your anxiety level.

Justin Steele’s season-ending elbow surgery and Imanaga’s hamstring injury obviously have factored into the Cubs’ rotation problems, but they were supposed to have starting depth. Instead, their starters ranked 23rd entering Saturday with a 4.31 ERA. Sox starters, meanwhile, were 18th at 4.20.

Thanks in no small part to the offense, Cubs starters were a combined 30-21, while Sox starters, with no run support to speak of, were a combined 13-30. Would you swap rotations if you were a Cubs fan?

The Sox likely will deal starter Adrian Houser before the trade deadline, in case Hoyer hasn’t heard lately from his Winnetka Starbucks buddy, Sox general manager Chris Getz.

Houser has a 1.90 ERA in seven starts for the Sox after throwing seven shutout innings in Saturday’s 1-0 victory over the San Francisco Giants. He’s affordable and shouldn’t cost the Cubs more than a prospect.

Lonzo Ball is out, and this time it’s for good.

The Cleveland Cavaliers accepted the challenge of trying to get Ball healthy enough to play in the NBA, acquiring him from the Chicago Bulls for Isaac Okoro, a disappointing top-five pick in the 2020 draft.

When healthy, Ball can be a premier player. He was that player for only 35 games in the 2021-22 season before the knee injury that would sideline him for 2½ seasons. He came back with a new knee in 2024-25, only to be limited to 35 games by a wrist injury and other ailments.

What if Ball had remained healthy? Would the Bulls have been competitive enough to be an annual playoff team the last four years?

Probably not, but it doesn’t matter anyway. Executive vice president of basketball operations Artūras Karnišovas, who reportedly is getting a contract extension for reasons that never will be publicly explained, wouldn’t have made the necessary trade-deadline decisions even if Ball had been healthy on a winning team.

Hopefully Ball can overcome his injuries and become the player many thought he’d be and not the Bulls version of former Cubs pitcher Mark Prior.

Luis Robert Jr. has a 0.0 WAR, which seems almost impossible for a player with his talent. Getz said Monday it’s still possible Robert could remain with the Sox after the trade deadline, which would be a shocking twist for a player who has been on trade-rumor watch for more than a year.

“We’ve never been out there making phone calls about Luis Robert,” Getz said. “It’s teams calling us and we have conversations. And (we’ve stuck) to the plan that we’ve been working (on) so far in which, if we feel like we can help the long-term health of the organization, so be it.

“We like having Luis Robert and I enjoy having him in the lineup on a nightly basis.”

Three days later, Robert was out with hamstring tightness. The wait goes on … and on.

Anton Frondell, the No. 3 pick in the NHL draft by the Chicago Blackhawks, could provide the organization with a much-needed personality boost, along with what he can do on the ice. His draft-day story of starting out as a 5-year-old wearing pink figure skates showed his sense of humor.

Frondell compared himself to Florida Panthers star Aleksander Barkov, another 6-foot-3, 215-pound forward who can score goals and doesn’t get pushed around. When the Hawks asked him whether he’d prefer to be a center or winger, Frondell replied, “Whatever Connor (Bedard) doesn’t play, I’ll play.”

Look for the Hawks marketing machine to put these two on billboards soon. It’s what they do best.

Our pick to click in next week’s Chicago Street Race is Katherine Legge, the eighth woman in modern history to compete in NASCAR and the first since Danica Patrick in 2018 to race in the Cup Series. In its third year, Chicago’s NASCAR race could use a nice storyline like a woman outdueling a field of men — and less rain.

Buckling pavement on the pop-up course from the recent heat wave provided a realistic, Chicago-style driving obstacle. But crews quickly repaired the pavement, which of course never would happen to a normal Chicago street.

Lewis Takes Super Hooligan Win, DiBrino In A Twins Cup Runaway, And
Knebel Scores Build.Train.Race. Victory

SHELTON, WA – June 29, 2025 – (Motor Sports NewsWire) – Strack Racing’s Mathew Scholtz went into Saturday’s Motovation Supersport race at Ridge Motorsports Park knowing it was go-time as he trailed championship leader PJ Jacobsen by 20 points. The South African responded in kind, dropping the hammer in the closing stages of the race to pull away from Jacobsen, who had inherited second place when Vision Wheel M4 ECSTAR Suzuki’s Tyler Scott crashed out while chasing Scholtz with three laps to go.

Now that points gap is down to 15.

Although the battle at the front lacked for passes, it oozed suspense with Scholtz out front and Scott and Rahal Ducati Moto w/XPEL’s Jacobsen applying pressure from behind. With Jacobsen fading a bit in the latter stages, it was a two-man race that looked set to go the distance. However, with three laps to go, Scott crashed his Suzuki GSX-R750 in the chicane in a carbon copy of Scholtz’s crash that ruined his Q2 session earlier in the day.

Riding a Yamaha YZF-R9 with a set-up that was basically unknown to him since he’d crashed early in Q2 and didn’t get to test the team’s latest set-up, Scholtz nabbed the holeshot from pole position (earned in Friday’s Q1) but used patience while making sure the motorcycle was the way he needed it. Turns out it was good enough as Scholtz raced to his third victory of the season by 4.2 seconds over Jacobsen, who had resigned himself to third before Scott crashed his Suzuki.

A resilient Cameron Petersen’s mood turned from dismay to elation as he fought the pain of his injured shoulder to finish third on his Celtic/Economy Lube+Tire/Warhorse HSBK Ducati Panigale V2 for his second podium of the season.

In order to get on the podium, Petersen had to pull off a last-lap pass on Strack Racing’s Blake Davis, beating the teenager to the flag by .333 of a second.

Jacobsen’s teammate Kayla Yaakov was fifth with Scott remounting to finish sixth. Altus Motorsports’ Jake Lewis was hot on Scott’s heels and just ahead of BPR Racing Yamaha’s Teagg Hobbs, who came out on top of a race-long battle with his teammate Josh Hayes.

Corey Alexander finished 10^th on the third of the Rahal Ducatis.

“I just didn’t feel good,” Scholtz said. “From Friday practice, I was pretty bummed with the pace. We made a few changes coming into qualifying two and I crashed in the third or fourth lap, so didn’t get to try any other changes. Damaged the forks. We had to change that. So, coming into this race now, we didn’t have the same set-up that we had yesterday or in qualifying two. We used some of qualifying two, some that we had on Friday afternoon. I wasn’t really sure how the bike would actually feel. So, the first couple laps I was just kind of feeling out the bike, feeling what it would do, and I didn’t feel good. At the halfway point I was sort of feeling a little bit better, hitting my marks more. But I could see that Tyler (Scott) was actually catching me. I think it was maybe four laps to go, I felt like I did a really good lap time, but I couldn’t see. The dashboard wasn’t working properly. So, I wasn’t sure if I was doing 42s or 43s or whatever, but it felt like I did something good. Then one lap turned to 1.5, so I thought he ran off or he crashed or something. So, I kind of chilled for the last three laps. Overall, I’m really happy with how things went. They worked so hard to get the bike ready for this race. It feels like I’m back up on the Superbike podium with Cam (Petersen) and PJ (Jacobsen). So that’s really cool. But overall, I’ve got a lot of things to try and look at and work on for the second race. To get back to a comfortable feeling. Through the middle of the corner, which is usually a strong point for me, I don’t feel confident. So, I’m really happy I managed to do this well with not feeling good there. So hopefully I can come out swinging and come out a little bit better for the second race.”

SC-Project Twins Cup – Di Mario By A Mile 

Alessandro Di Mario destroyed the competition in Saturday’s SC-Project Twins Cup race at Ridge Motorsports Park with the Robem Engineering rider completely dominating the 12-lap race on his Aprilia RS 660.

The win wasn’t a surprise as the Kentuckian had plenty in hand all weekend, lapping two seconds quicker than the competition to take pole position for the two Twins Cup races.

After just five laps, Di Mario led by six seconds and it was a margin that continued to grow to the finish, with Aprilia rider crossing the finish line 12.4 seconds ahead of Karns/TST Industries Levi Badie, who came out the better in a fight with RevZilla/Motul/Vance & Hines Suzuki’s Mathew Chapin by .214 of a second.

Fourth place went to Robem Engineering’s Hank Vossberg in his SC-Project Twins Cup debut. Vossberg was mostly alone, 8.9 seconds behind the battle for second and over 15 seconds ahead of fifth-placed Seth Dahmer.

Giaccmoto Yamaha Racing’s Dominic Doyle was in the battle for second until a mechanical issue slowed him. The South African managed to nurse his Yamaha home to sixth but was hit with a sanction after the race. Doyle’s computer was plugged into his bike for two minutes and 30 seconds too long after the team ignored officials’ instructions to remove the cable. Doyle will start his next race from the back of the grid.

“I had a big crash in qualifying so I can’t thank the team enough. Mike, Matt, Chad, just everybody that’s helped me put the bike back together. I wouldn’t be here without them, so I owe it to them. Thank you so much.”

Royal Enfield. Build.Train.Race. – First Of Three To Knebel 

With two more races on the docket tomorrow, the women of Build.Train.Race. will have two more shots at trying to catch and beat Kira Knebel.

Knebel won Saturday’s Royal Enfield battle, topping Shea MacGregor by 7.5 seconds with pole-sitter Mirando Cain a shadow third and just .071 of a second behind MacGregor, who made a last-lap pass on Cain after a race-long battle.

The win was Knebel’s third on the season and it came after a practice crash left her with a badly battered motorcycle.

The top three were 26 seconds clear of fourth-placed Kate West, who in turn had 6.9 seconds on Camille Conrad.

“I couldn’t be here without the team,” Knebel said. “That was a very bad crash, and it’s incredible what they were able to pull off in the time that they were. My mechanic, Sean, I told him I had to win this for him because he flew out here early, rebuilt the entire thing, and it was ready for me to just button up once I got here. It’s so incredible what we’re able to do with the support that we have here with the team and all of the sponsors that help make this possible for us. Huge shout out to Royal Enfield and all of the other sponsors involved for getting us those extras and being able to make this happen for me and all the other women here. It’s really important to us to be able to do that. I appreciate all the people that are here watching us and everybody at home that is also helping make that happen.”

Mission Super Hooligan National Championship Powered By Harley Davidson – Weight No More 

Saddlemen Race Development’s Jake Lewis shrugged off the mandated 38-pound weight-gain on his Harley-Davidson Pan America to win Saturday’s Mission Super Hooligan National Championship race with the Kentuckian leading every lap.

At the finish line, it was Lewis taking the victory over KWR Harley-Davidson’s James Rispoli (with his Pan America taking on an additional 24 pounds) by 1.9 seconds.

Third place went to Competition Werkes Racing’s Andy DiBrino and his Triumph 765 RS, with the Oregonian 2.9 seconds ahead of defending class champion Cory West. West had run off track while running second but was able to gather things up to finish fourth.

Rispoli’s KWR teammate Hayden Schultz rounded out the top five.

ARCH Racing’s Corey Alexander was sixth, his best finish of the year thus far on the Keanu Reeves-owned 2S-R.

Mathew Scholtz (1) came out on top of a battle with Tyler Scott (70) and PJ Jacobsen (15) in Supersport action at Ridge Motorsports Park on Saturday. Photo by Brian J. Nelson

The win was Scholtz’s third of the season and it moved him to within 15 points of Jacobsen in the title chase. Photo by Brian J. Nelson

Alessandro Di Mario (1) gapped the field in just two corners and ended up winning the SC-Project Twins Cup race by over 12 seconds. Photo by Brian J. Nelson

Jake Lewis (85) leads Cory West (1), Andy DiBrino (62), and James Rispoli (43) in the Mission Super Hooligan National Championship race at Ridge Motorsports Park on Saturday. Lewis won the race over Rispoli and DiBrino. Photo by Brian J. Nelson

Kira Knebel took her third Royal Enfield Build.Train.Race. victory of the season in Saturday’s race one. Photo by Brian J. Nelson

The list of drivers not involved in the crash was shorter than the list of those that were.

PublishedJune 28, 2025 9:45 PM EDT•UpdatedJune 29, 2025 8:50 AM EDT

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The NASCAR Cup Series is in Atlanta this weekend for some night racing at EchoPark Speedway (I know, I liked it when it was called Atlanta Motor Speedway, too), and the race is proving to be one of attrition.

The track in Atlanta was reconfigured into a shorter version of a superspeedway like Talladega or Daytona, and that has led to pack racing similar to what you see on larger tracks.

And what can often happen with pack racing?

The Big One.

Well, the evening’s first stage of the Quaker State 400 was winding down when a handful of drivers saw their nights ruined thanks to a crash that involved the likes of Ryan Blaney, Christopher Bell, and Kyle Larson.

That ruined a few nights and gave some other teams quite a bit of work to do to get their cars in a condition to return to the race. 

The stage ended under caution with Austin Cindric taking the win, but the drivers who stayed out in the hope of stealing some stage points cycled back into the pack, and that became a real problem when Stage 2 got underway.

Just a few laps into the stage came the Big One.

You can see an issue for Denny Hamlin in the No. 11 car just a few rows back, and as he cut down across the backstretch, he took just about everyone with him.

I mean, look at this.

Fortunately, everyone involved was alright, but talk about a moment that changes the complexion of a race. There were plenty of cars that looked capable of winning that either retired, sustained damage that needed to be repaired and put them many laps down, or were able to stay in the race on the lead lap, but suffered damage that would make their car difficult to drive for the rest of the evening.

Not fun, but that’s the nature of racing on tracks like EchoPark Speedway … by which I mean Atlanta Motor Speedway.

Final result 24 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps

1st (1st Pro) Bortolotti/Engstler/Pepper (ITA/DEU/ZAF), Lamborghini #63, 549 laps
2nd (2nd Pro) Müller/Niederhauser/Picariello (DEU/CHE/BEL), Rutronik Racing, Porsche 911 GT3 R #96, + 8.703 seconds
3rd (3rd Pro) Rovera/Abril/Pier Guidi (ITA/MCO/ITA), Ferrari #51, + 26.639 seconds
16th (4th GC) Adelson/Skeer/Sargent (USA/USA/AUS), Wright Motorsports, Porsche 911 GT3 R #120, -3 laps
21st (4th BC) Rindone/Kolb/Feller/Pera (FRA/DEU/CHE/ITA), Lionspeed GP, Porsche 911 GT3 R #80, -3 laps
25th (6th BC) Bohn/A. Renauer/R. Renauer/Jefferies (DEU/DEU/DEU/ZWE), Herberth Motorsport, Porsche 911 GT3 R #91, -5 laps
30th (6th SC) Rappange/Al Rifai/Pieris/Baud (NLD/ARE/LKA/FRA), Dinamic GT, Porsche 911 GT3 R #54, -7 laps
31st (1st PAM) Abramczyk/Detry/Duffieux/Yuan (FRA/BEL/BEL/CHN), AV Racing by Car Collection Motorsport, Porsche 911 GT3 R #29, -7 laps
45th (13th BC) Schuring/Au/Hartog/Rump (NLD/HKG/NLD/EST), Rutronik Racing, Porsche 911 GT3 R #97, – 26 laps

DNF Lietz/Malykhin/Preining (AUT/GBR/AUT), Pure Rxcing, Porsche 911 GT3 R #911, 136 laps
DNF Buus/Campbell/Jaminet (DNK/AUS/FRA), Dinamic GT, Porsche 911 GT3 R #18, 60 laps
DNF Bachler/Güven/Heinrich (AUT/TUR/DEU), Schumacher CLRT, Porsche 911 GT3 R #22, 27 laps

Pro = Pro class; PAM = Pro-Am Cup; GC = Gold Cup; SC = Silver Cup; BC = Bronze Cup All results at https://www.gt-world-challenge-europe.com/watch-live