By: Zach Arnold

It has been a while since Chase Elliott has parked his No. 9 Chevrolet in victory lane at a NASCAR Cup Series race, his 42-race winless streak ended in the ninth race of 2024.

It was hard to tell which driver would win Sunday afternoon’s race. The field had to go through many attempts at an overtime restart, where Elliott managed to hold the lead on each restart.

The race ended due to a caution involving William Byron and Ross Chastain on the final lap. Chastain received the worst of it with a 32nd-place finish while Byron was placed in third.

Denny Hamlin was in a good position for a top-five but spun out when battling Elliott for the lead on the initial overtime restart.

The 400-mile event started with domination from Kyle Larson. The No. 5 team won stage one after racing out front for many laps of the segment. His lead was lost when his right-rear tire fell off under caution. This resulted in a two-lap penalty and most likely a future suspension for some of his crew members. Larson would not rebound back to the top ten as he was involved in the 13th caution of the day. He resulted in 20th place.

There were 23 lead changes throughout the AutoTrader EchoPark Automotive 400, and many drivers were battling for the lead at some point. Restarts and pit stops were arguably the most important part of the race as track position was key.

16 cautions occurred throughout the event, with most of these yellow flags happening on restarts as air became tight battling for position.

Austin Hill and Jimmie Johnson were two new faces in the Cup Series in 2024. Hill’s second Cup event of the season ended early due to a steering issue in stage two. Johnson had an up-and-down day as he spun early in the race, and brought his No. 84 Toyota to a 26th place finish.

Hendrick Motorsports has now won five races in 2024. Three of their four drivers have reached victory lane throughout the first nine races of the season, Alex Bowman is the only HMS driver who has not.

NASCAR heads to Talladega Superspeedway next week for the Geico 500. Tune in next Sunday at 3:00pm for the 188-lap event.