Pole winner Chase Elliott held off a dramatic charge from Ryan Blaney to win Sunday nightโs Cook Out Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium in front of a teeming, vociferous sellout crowd at the historic quarter-mile.
Adroitly working lapped traffic in the closing stages of the 200-lap season-opening exhibition race, Elliott crossed the finish line 1.333s ahead of Blaney, who started last among the 23 competitors on a driver points provisional.
Elliott claimed his first victory in the Clash, which came to Bowman Gray after a three-year stint in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. The driver of the No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet reveled in the NASCAR Cup Seriesโ return to the iconic short track after an absence of 54 years.
It’s all Chase at Bowman Gray!
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โ NASCAR (@NASCAR) February 3, 2025
โThis environment is special,โ said Elliott, who led 171 laps, including the first 96 before surrendering the lead to eventual third-place finisher Denny Hamlin. โThis is a place that has a deep history in NASCAR. I think they deserve this event, truthfully.
โI hope we didnโt disappoint. It was fun for me at least, and weโll hopefully come back here one day.โ
Hamlin led twice for 28 laps, but faded after Elliott retook the top spot from him on lap 126. And when Blaney slipped past Hamlinโs Toyota on lap 147, it became a two-driver race.
But Blaneyโs car tightened up in the late going, preventing the driver of the No. 12 Team Penske Ford from challenging for the win. Blaney thought better of making an overly aggressive move on the seriesโ seven-time most popular driver.
โIโm not going to bulldog into him and get chased out of here with pitchforks,โ Blaney quippedโฆ โI just didn’t quite have enough right rear at the end to make a move on him.โ
Joey Logano finished fourth, followed by Bubba Wallace, who advanced from his 14th-place starting position. Ross Chastain, Austin Cindric, Tyler Reddick, Shane van Gisbergen and Chris Buescher completed the top 10.
Hamlin rued the final restart on lap 121, after the seventh caution for Brad Keselowskiโs spin off Wallaceโs bumper.
โI just didnโt do very well on that restart there, and kind of lost the bottom, and Chase took advantage of it,โ Hamlin said. โOnce you get the lead, itโs a lot easier to hang on to it.
โI thought that they were just a little better that second half than we were, along with the 12 (Blaney) was as well. We just have to get a little bit better, but overall, a good day for our Sport Clips Toyota.โ
In the last chance qualifier that determined positions 21 and 22 in the main event, Kyle Larson charged from the 10th starting position and survived nine cautions to win the 75-lap event and advance to the Clash.
On lap 72, Larson grabbed the lead from Josh Berry, who was making his first competitive start for Wood Brothers Racing at the track where team patriarch and NASCAR Hall of Famer Glen Wood secured all four of his Cup Series victories.
Larson took the top spot for the first time on lap 30 and led a race-high 36 circuits en route to the win. However, Larsonโs No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet sustained damage after he surrendered the lead to Erik Jones for a restart on lap 65.
In a melee moments after racing resumed, Jones spun in a three-wide mishap with Berry and Larson and dropped out of contention.
โMy car was way better than it was yesterday,โ said Larson, whose eighth-place finish in his Saturday heat relegated him to the last chance qualifier. โThat was fun. I was able to get to the front without really getting into too many people.
โBut then after that long break (for local champion Burt Myers hard wreck on lap 61), I cycled really tight for that restart and allowed Erik to get in front of me and just kind of lost control of the race at that point. Then, the next restart, it got crazy, and I got a bunch of damage.โ
Berry, who started 13th, held second to secure the 22nd spot in the Clash. Berry and Larson finished 13th and 17th, respectively, in the main event.
โIt got pretty rough,โ Berry said. โYou hate that it comes to that, but it is what it is — itโs the Madhouse, itโs Bowman Gray Stadium, itโs a tight racetrack, and youโre going to run into each other.โ
Elliott is the 26th different driver to win the Clash and the eighth different driver to win the event in the last eight years. Heโs the first driver to win in a Chevrolet since Jimmie Johnson did so in 2019. This was the sixth time the Clash has been won from the pole position.
