Chase Elliott had it.
He was there, speeding to victory in the Coca-Cola 600, so far ahead that even his spotter had gone mostly silent. His crew prepared for celebration. After grinding through nearly six hours worth of racing at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Elliott was a single minute from winning.
And then it happened _ again.
For the second time in a four-day span, Elliott got blindsided by a racing incident that wasn't his fault. This time it actually came from a Hendrick Motorsports racing teammate. William Byron, far back in the field, cut a tire and spun out.
"That's got to be a joke!" Elliott said on his radio, along with a few unprintable things.
It wasn't a joke. It meant that Elliott _ practically on cruise control until Byron's wreck brought out the final caution flag and bunched up the field again _ had to win the race at Charlotte Motor Speedway all over again.
And he couldn't.
Hamstrung by a questionable call by crew chief Alan Gustafson to pit for four tires following that last caution, Elliott didn't restart from the front and couldn't make up the difference in the two-lap overtime period.
Instead, Brad Keselowski won and Jimmie Johnson finished second (Johnson was later disqualified for failing his post-race inspection). Neither of them had pitted at the end. Elliott was left with a third-place finish and a bushel of what-might-have-beens. He was moved up to second after Johnson got DQ-ed. That was no real consolation, though. In racing, there is a yawning gap between first place and everything else.
"We were a lap-and-a-half away from winning the Coca-Cola 600," a downcast Elliott said later.
On Wednesday, Kyle Busch had wrecked Elliott in the final laps at Darlington Raceway. Elliott was contending for the lead when Busch made a nearly inexplicable mistake for a driver of his caliber and sideswiped Elliott.
The resulting spin knocked Elliott out of the race. He fired a public middle finger at Busch right after that. But neither flipping the bird nor Busch's immediate apology for his mistake did Elliott any good.
So Sunday night made two potential wins for Elliott in four days in the Carolinas, both of them swept away by the gods of racing misfortune.
It makes you wonder what the next NASCAR Cup race Wednesday night at Charlotte Motor Speedway will plague Elliott with _ locusts, perhaps? Millions of cicadas are emerging in North Carolina after spending the past 17 years underground. Who's going to be surprised if a few get into Elliott's engine?
