We all saw it – Chase Elliott intentionally right-reared Denny Hamlin and caused him to suffer a vicious hit to the outside wall during Monday’s Coke 600. No, the contact from Keselowski didn’t cause the two to make contact. No, his car wasn’t so broken that it suddenly veered out of control to the left. Chase Elliott 100% intentionally sent Denny Hamlin head on into the tri-oval wall at over 150mph.
It was a move that almost exactly mirrored the incident between Bubba Wallace and Kyle Larson at Las Vegas last year. In both cases the offending driver was run up the track and into the outside wall off of turn four, then retaliated with orders of magnitude more force than the initial offense warranted.
The only real differences were 1) Bubba chased Larson further down the track than Elliott had to chase Hamlin, and 2) the ferocity of Hamlin’s wreck was a good bit worse than Larson’s was. I don’t recall seeing as violent an in-car camera as the one focused on Denny Hamlin during this wreck. Fortunately (and I do mean fortunately) Hamlin walked away from the wreck unharmed.
Now, the ball is squarely in NASCAR’s court – and they better make the right call.
The precedent was very clearly established after the Wallace vs. Larson mess of last year – intentionally right rear hook someone into the wall, you get a one week suspension. Full stop, no exceptions. At least there shouldn’t be… right?
If NASCAR turns around the very next season and pardons their most popular driver for the same infraction (which resulted in a harder wreck) that will be an otherworldly bad look.
Most fans seem to be in agreement that a suspension is coming, but there also seems to be a pretty vocal minority trying to defend Chase – he is, after all, the sports most popular driver. If you’re on of those people, it is very important that you recognize this: your boy messed up. He used his car as a weapon and attempted to injure one of his competitors in a fit of anger. We’ve all lost our cool from time to time, but what happened Monday was a gross overreaction to a pretty innocuous incident, and absolutely unacceptable.
NASCAR needs to bring down the hammer here, just as they did for last year’s equally unacceptable move. One race vacation for the sport’s most popular driver. It has to happen, and nothing less is the least bit acceptable here.
With Hendrick’s substitute driver of Choice Josh Berry occupied in Portland next weekend… I wonder who gets a shot in the famous Hendrick #9?
Image credit: Pat Vallely
UPDATE: Since this article was written, it was announced that Elliott will serve a one race penalty. Corey LaJoie will replace him in the 9 while Carson Hocevar will take over the 7.
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