With ten laps to go, it looked like Chase Elliott's shot of winning at his home track was quickly fading. He had fallen to eighth in the running order and the Fords were working well together at the front of the pack.
Zane Smith led the way, searching for his first career win. In fact, every driver inside the top ten was winless in 2025, leading to some desperate moves and near-wrecks. But over the course of those final 15 miles, Elliott was the one who made all the right moves to get back to the lead at the very end. But how did it all go down?
The march back to the front
Running the outside lane, Elliott was able to get back to seventh with relative ease while the leaders went back-and-forth, keeping the pack bunched up. Elliott's Hendrick Motorsports teammate Alex Bowman was dicing it up for the lead while Elliott found himself in a bad spot as Carson Hocevar nearly lost it directly in front of him. Elliott had nowhere to go with Chris Buescher directly to his inside so he just shoved the No. 77 of Hocevar forward.
Bowman and Smith continued to swap the lead as Elliott regrouped and set his sights on sixth place, cutting under Hocevar and clearing him from the inside. Things were getting tense in the battle for the win as Ricky Stenhouse Jr. made a daring three-wide pass for the top spot. Bowman ended up getting stalled out and Elliott made his own three-wide pass to the outside of his teammate, re-entering the top five.
Brad Keselowski moved into the lead as Elliott and Bowman split Smith, shuffling the No. 38 back. That was a critical move as Smith was the only other Ford besides Keselowski running at the front. The RFK Racing driver had no friends left, and alliances were going to be everything in the closing moments of this race.
Smith tried to fight back, pulling alongside Elliott, but the 2020 NASCAR Cup champion held strong on the outside. With just three laps to go, he had the choice to either push Stenhouse from the top line or move low and help his teammate. Elliott wisely chose neither, sweeping to the far inside in a bold three-wide pass reminiscent of what Stenhouse had just done.
It was a remarkable move, clearing both drivers in the same corner and even pulling up alongside Tyler Reddick for the runner-up spot. With Bowman helping, he was nearly up to Keselowski when the race leader slammed the door on him into Turn 3. In the dirty air, Elliott was forced to fall back in line behind Reddick. If he hadn't found that hole, it could have been game over. But he did and didn't sit there for long, rebuilding the momentum in a single straightaway and diving back under Reddick. He cleared him with just two laps left, now all over Keselowski.
Teamwork for the win
There were three different manufacturers in the top three, so everyone was going to be looking out for themselves. But that's when Bowman dove underneath Reddick, clearing him and filling the spot directly behind his teammate.
Keselowski was leading as the field took the white flag, but the battle was already over at this point. Elliott laid back and picked up a friendly push, allowing him to surge forward and dive to the inside of Keselowski. He desperately tried to block, but there was nothing he could do as Elliott claimed the race lead.
Keselowski now had Bowman behind him but he never had the chance to rebuild momentum as Bowman did what he could to ensure Elliott got away cleanly. While Keselowski and Bowman battled over second place, Elliott pulled ahead and captured the checkered flag, snapping a 44-race winless streak.
Driver reactions
Obviously, Keselowski was disappointed by the result, but he knew he had little chance when it became two against one at the front of the field.
“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," said Keselowski. "When had our cars linked up at RFK 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.”
Bowman, who is also winless in 2025, said of the finish: “I needed to not be in the lead as early as I was. I felt like whoever was leading was kind of a sitting duck there at the end with how good everyone’s cars were driving. I just got shuffled back. We were coming back through the field and got back to third. We had a really good No. 48 Ally Chevrolet tonight. Happy for the No. 9 team. It’s a big win for them. Proud of everyone at Hendrick Motorsports and we’ll keep on digging.”
Reddick fell back to fourth at the end, the best of the Toyota drivers left in the race. "Made the wrong move at the wrong time, most of the night," he said after the race. "If I sat and waited, I would get shuffled back, just needed to be a little bit smarter with my move on the 6 [Keselowski]. I got shuffled too far back to fight truly for the win there, so just disappointing for sure, but it was nice to get a Playoff point and score some points at a superspeedway. Just more and more new winners, so we have to find a way to victory lane.”
