NCS: Chase Elliott wins action-packed Cup Series race at Atlanta – Speedway Digest

Georgia native Chase Elliott won Saturday nights EchoPark Automotive 400 at EchoPark Speedway (Atlanta) in a last lap pass for the lead from Brad Keselowski to lock himself into the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series playoffs.

Elliott led 41 laps in his No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet over the course of nine different lead changes. Prior to passing Keselowski for the win on the final lap, Elliott was in the lead on Lap 225.

Elliott and nine other drivers elected to stay out on track instead of pitting during the final caution of the night. Driver No. 9 would fall back as far as eighth win ten laps remaining but he had drafting help with his Hendrick Motorsports teammate Alex Bowman to work his way back towards the front.

“This is unbelievable,” Elliott told TNT Sports post-race. “Thank you guys so much. What a special car. It was a lot of fun. This right here is something I’ll never forget.”

Rounding out the top five were Brad Keselowski in second, Alex Bowman in third, Tyler Reddick in fourth and Erik Jones in fifth.

Keselowski, who finished runner-up had led seven times over the course of 46 laps but would fall short on the final lap after Elliott passed for the race lead.

“Every loss hurts,” Keselowski told TNT sports. “I don’t dwell on it. We’ll go onto next week and try to win.”

Saturday’s win for Elliott marked his 20th career Cup series victory and his first win since Texas Motor Speedway in April of 2024.

Elliott and four others were the only ones who survived getting in an accident throughout the course of the 260 lap race. “The big one”, which we come accustomed to seeing at Daytona and Talladega occurred Saturday night when an 18 car pileup took place on a Lap 69 restart.

Notables who were taken out in the wreck included: pole-sitter Joey Logano, Ross Chastain, Daniel Suarez, Chase Briscoe, William Byron and top seed in the million dollar in season challenge Denny Hamlin.

This would send the race into its second red flag of the evening. The first red flag was displayed on Lap 37 due to a rain shower.

With 16 laps left in the first stage, chaos would ensue when Christopher Bell lost control of his No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota in Turn 4 and collected Austin Dillion, AJ Allmendinger, Bubba Wallace and Ryan Blaney.

For Blaney, this marks his sixth DNF of the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season.

“Story of our year, Getting caught up in other people’s garbage,” Blaney told TNT sports. “As soon as I feel like we get it going pretty good and find some momentum we never seem to have things going our way.”

Rounding out the top ten were Ricky Stenhouse Jr. in sixth, Zane Smith in seventh, Ty Dillion in eighth, Chris Buescher in ninth and Carson Hocevar in tenth.

The NASCAR Cup Series heads to the Chicago Street Course next Sunday, July 6th at 2:00 p.m. Eastern on TNT.

Stage 1 Winner: Austin Cindric

Stage 2 Winner: Tyler Reddick

Race Winner: Chase Elliott