Chase Elliott Had Nowhere to Go, Out After Talladega Melee on Lap 52

Chase Elliott is likely staring at a must-win situation next weekend at Martinsville Speedway, if the 2020 NASCAR Cup Series champion wants to have a shot at his second career championship in a few weeks at Phoenix Raceway.

Elliott was one of nine drivers ensnarled in a massive crash on Lap 52 of Sunday's YellaWood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway, which was triggered by a bump draft from Erik Jones onto Noah Gragson, which sent Gragson spinning to the inside of the track.

Here is a video of the Lap 52 crash:

Here is the crash that impacted the day in Stage 1: pic.twitter.com/vpGwmyfQBV
— Toby Christie (@Toby_Christie) October 19, 2025

Gragson would collide with race leader AJ Allmendinger, which sent Allmendinger hard into the outside wall. The same would happen to Justin Haley a few spots back. And as the track was blocked ahead, Elliott had nowhere to go.

"I just saw someone get turned sideways, kinda like normal. Hope you can get slowed down in time, and I haven't seen it back, but got turned sideways there, somehow, some way. Yeah, hit some more stuff after that," Elliott explained of his view of the crash after being checked and released from the infield care center.

Here is video from Chase Elliott's in-car camera during the multi-car melee on Lap 52:

Simply put, there was nothing Chase Elliott could do. Talladega called his number on this one. pic.twitter.com/GFvNjTUImZ
— Toby Christie (@Toby_Christie) October 19, 2025

Elliott's team was unable to make repairs that would get him back into the race, and they would retire for the day, and the driver of the No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet will be credited with a last-place (40th) finish.

While Elliott's teammate Kyle Larson has complained about a lack of speed in his No. 5 car in the opening portion of Sunday's race, Elliott said he had no such issues. Instead, the Most Popular Driver says his No. 9 car was so far back in the running order due to poor execution by the Hendrick Motorsports four-car team during a green-flag pit sequence in Stage 1.

"We did a really -- the way the sequence went, I felt like that we had ourselves in a pretty good spot with how the sequence was, and we just did not execute that well, I felt like as a group. Ultimately, that put ourselves back at the back of the pack, unfortunately, and got caught up in the mess."

With the last-place finish, next week's race at Martinsville becomes a must-win.

"Yeah, very much," Elliott explained.

However, Elliott says that doesn't change anything about his mindset, as he felt, short of a win in Sunday's race, that he'd be heading into the 0.526-mile Martinsville Speedway next weekend needing a win anyway.

"I'm excited about [Martinsville]. Unless we won today, we were likely going to be in a very similar situation next week," Elliott explained. "I hate it, I don't know what you do about those situations, right? We weren't back there doing anything wild or crazy. They get turned sideways, and you slid into the wreck."

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