Chase Elliott's coming to JR Motorsports at Chicagoland could've been a reunion with a lot of upside. He first won at the track for JRM as an 18-year-old in his 2014 season. This time, he was back in the No. 88 Chevrolet to grab some extra track time before Sunday's Cup race, as NASCAR returned to Chicagoland for the first time in seven years.
Elliott looked every bit like the driver to beat, leading a race-high 78 laps and winning Stage 2. But when the most crucial part of his day was ahead, the win simply slipped away from him. Afterward, Dale Earnhardt Jr. didn't point fingers at Elliott. He pointed them at his own team.
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"That was frustrating because I wanted Chase to win," Dale Jr. admitted on Dirty Mo Media
. "Chase has fun driving our cars. I wanted to give him a good enough car to win, and I don't think we did."
It was a blunt assessment from the JR Motorsports co-owner after Elliott came home second in the O'Reilly Auto Parts Series race. The final restart was the decider. Brandon Jones, a former JRM driver now racing for Joe Gibbs Racing, got a strong run down the backstretch and took the momentum with him into Turn 3.
Elliott charged into the corner trying to answer, but couldn't make the outside lane work, and so, Jones pulled ahead and won by just 0.171 seconds. Dale Jr. made sure Brandon Jones got due credit.
"You've got to give Brandon Jones his flowers," he said. "He got great positioning going down the backstretch on Chase and into Turn 3. Chase just buried it in there but couldn't outperform the No. 20 car around the top."
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The result stung because Elliott had much of the night under his control. After rain washed out qualifying, he started 11th, worked through the field, led 78 laps, and looked set to give JRM another Chicagoland win. Instead, the late restart flipped the outcome. Still, Dale Jr. isn't dwelling on it for long.
"We'll get another shot at it at Indy with Chase in the No. 88, which will be fun."
Elliott's near-miss was not the only frustration at JRM. Dale Jr. felt Justin Allgaier had a top-three car, but pit road mistakes cost the No. 7 team valuable track position. Sammy Smith's No. 8 Chevrolet struggled with a tight balance all night. Carson Kvapil battled handling issues in the No. 9 before strong restarts helped him salvage an 11th-place finish.
The biggest setback belonged to Connor Zilisch. He started on the pole and dominated Stage 1, winning it by nearly five seconds. Then, a massive team error ruined his night.
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"Connor had a badass car at the start of the race," Dale Jr. said. "Then we ran him out of gas."
Connor Zilisch
coasted to a stop after running out of fuel while leading, dropping him to 26th place. Dale Jr. didn't dismiss it as bad luck.
"It wasn't a fluke. It wasn't just one of those things. It was a mistake on our part."
Once Zilisch restarted in traffic, the problems snowballed. Contact damaged the side of the car, reducing its aerodynamic balance. Soon after, he spun, ending any chance of recovering.
Looking back, Dale Jr. saw enough speed to be encouraged, but too many self-inflicted mistakes to celebrate.
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Four JRM cars finished inside the top 12, yet the team left Chicagoland without the trophy after leading much of the race. For a driver like Chase Elliott, who returned to JRM looking for extra laps before the Cup weekend, that made the runner-up finish feel even more disappointing. And for Dale Jr., the biggest regret wasn't how Elliott drove. It was that his team didn't quite give him enough to finish the job.
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