By Reid Spencer

HAMPTON, Ga. – Timing his pass on the last lap to perfection, Georgia native Chase Elliott charged past Brad Keselowski and held off the driver of the No. 6 Ford to win Saturday night’s Quaker State 400 at Echo Park Speedway.

The popular victory in the first event of the NASCAR Cup Series’ In-Season Challenge broke a 44-race drought for Elliott dating to last year’s win at Texas Motor Speedway. The win was the second at EchoPark for the driver of the No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet and the 20th of his career.

Elliott crossed the finish line 0.168 seconds ahead of Keselowski and 0.170 seconds in front of teammate and third-place finisher Alex Bowman.

The 29-year-old from Dawsonville, Ga., advanced to the second round of the five-race in-season tournament, eliminating first-round opponent Austin Dillon, who finished 20th.

In a race that featured 46 lead changes among 13 drivers, Elliott got a welcome push from Bowman on the final two laps, stranding Keselowski with no help for a final charge.

"Unbelievable... unbelievable. How about that? Are you kidding me?” Elliott said with an uncharacteristic display of emotion. “I've never in my life... This is unbelievable. Thank you guys so much.

“What a special car, and just a huge thanks to [sponsor] NAPA Auto Parts and everything they do for me and to benefit Children's Healthcare of Atlanta. [Cancer patient] Rhealynn Mills designed the fast NAPA Chevrolet tonight, so this was a lot of fun. This right here is something I'll never forget."

In the closing laps, Elliott was quick to seize the opportunity that came his way.

“Well, I just think that, honestly, all the cards fell on the right places there those last couple laps,” he acknowledged. “What a crazy race, man. I don't know if y'all had fun, but it was wild from my seat. I'm so glad we got to run that thing out there to the end.”

Keselowski led 46 laps, including circuits 255-259 of 260, and advanced past 21st-place finisher Kyle Busch in the In-Season Challenge, but he had no defense for Elliott’s final push.

“The 9 [Elliott] just had the 48 [Bowman] behind him giving him a huge push, and there was nothing I could do to cover that,” Keselowski said. “When we had our cars linked up at RFK [Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing], we could do the same thing, but we lost that, and it was just kind of a two-on-one, and I fought as hard as I could.”

Tyler Reddick came home fourth, followed by Erik Jones. Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Zane Smith, Ty Dillon, Chris Buescher and Carson Hocevar completed the top 10.

The 18th event of the Cup Series regular season got off to a slow start that belied the intense action that would come later in the proceedings. A delay for a light rain stopped the race for 14minutes, 34 seconds after 36 laps, with Joey Logano out front for the entire stint after starting from the pole.

After the resumption to green-flag racing on Lap 49, the first of two major wrecks was just eight circuits away. On Lap 57, Christopher Bell turned sideways near the apex of Turns 3 and 4, igniting a seven-car wreck that sent the cars of Bell and Ryan Blaney to the garage for attempted repairs.

“I saw a couple guys spinning and slowing,” Blaney said. “I got to the apron and there was really nowhere else for me to go but the apron. I tried to get there and get clear of it, but they kind of came down and got me in the right-rear and I ended up in the fence. 

“There was no missing that one.”

That was just the appetizer. One the backstretch after a restart on Lap 69, Buescher lifted to avoid running into then-leader Chase Elliott and the field accordioned behind him, sending cars spinning out of control and into each other.

In a wreck that inflicted varying degrees of damage on 22 of the 40 cars, the vehicles of Ross Chastain, William Byron, Daniel Suarez, Denny Hamlin, Chase Briscoe, Austin Cindric, Josh Berry and Corey LaJoie all found their way to the garage—several on wrecker—a result of the 16-car pileup.

Byron exited in 36th place.

“There wasn’t really a whole lot I could see,” said the two-time Daytona 500 winner. “I was kind of catching the No. 22 [Logano] with a little bit of a run. All the guys at the front had pitted during the stage break and cycled to the mid-20s.

“We were just running a great race in the top five. They all stacked up and at that point, I went right a little bit; the wreck was already happening, and I just kind of got shoved into it.”

Needless to say, the two major incidents had enormous implications for the In-Season Challenge. Hamlin, the top seed, fell victim to 32nd seed Ty Dillon in the biggest upset of the opening round.

“For all you Denny fans out there, I just beat your favorite driver,” Dillon quipped afterwards, borrowing from one of Hamin’s signature phrases.

Second-seeded Briscoe was ousted by close friend Noah Gragson, who survived the major incidents and finished 25th. Byron bowed out to Ryan Preece, who finished 15th.

Joining Elliott, Keselowski, Ty Dillon, Preece and Gragson in advancing to the second round of the Challenge were Bowman, Bubba Wallace, John Hunter Nemechek, Jones, Hocevar, Reddick (eliminating Kyle Larson), AJ Allmendinger, Ty Gibbs and Smith.

The race featured 10 cautions for 68 laps. Logano led twice for a race-high 51 laps before exiting after the Lap 69 crash. Austin Cindric won the first stage. Reddick edged Elliott for the Stage 2 win by 0.001 seconds.