Chase Elliott claimed victory at the unofficial kickoff event for the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season Sunday night at Bowman Gray Stadium. Elliott showcased his dominance by initiating key moves in the race and pulling away from Ryan Branny during the final 20 laps. Out of the 23 starters, 12 finished on the lead lap, but Elliott led an impressive 171 of the 200 laps, including both the opening 97 and closing 75 laps.<\/p>\n
Ryan Blaney delivered a strong performance compared to his previous outing but couldn\u2019t overtake Elliott in the later stages. Denny Hamlin secured third place, having led 28 laps, while Tyler Reddick led briefly for a single lap, underscoring the dominance of Elliott and Chevrolet’s No. 9 team.<\/p>\n
This preseason exhibition was held at the Winston Salem Quarter Mile Truck track for the first time, moving from the Los Angeles Coliseum where it had been for three years. Despite the track\u2019s reputation for crashes, the main event saw relatively few incidents, with the last crash occurring on lap 120 after a relatively calm race.<\/p>\n
The official start of the Cup Series season is set for February 16 with the Daytona 500, where 2020 champion Elliott is considered a favorite. Despite multiple appearances in the prestigious race, Elliott has yet to secure a win there.<\/p>\n
Final results from the Clash at Bowman Gray:
\n1. Chase Elliott
\n2. Ryan Branny
\n3. Denny Hamlin
\n4. Joey Rogano
\n5. Baba Wallace
\n6. Ross Chastain
\n7. Austin Sindrick
\n8. Tyler Reddick
\n9. Shane van Gisbergen
\n10. Chris Busture
\n11. Ryan Place
\n12. Christopher Bell
\n13. Josh Berry
\n14. Todd Gilliland
\n15. Kyle Bush
\n16. But Carson
\n17. Kyle Larson
\n18. William Byron
\n19. Alex Bowman
\n20. Noah Grugson
\n21. Brad Keselowski
\n22. Daniel Suarez
\n23. Chase Brisco<\/p>\n
Fan Take: This early-season exhibition win is a strong statement by Chase Elliott and sets the tone for what fans can expect in 2025\u2014an intense battle among top drivers. Elliott’s performance and Chevrolet\u2019s strength could signal a thrilling and competitive NASCAR season ahead, full of rivalries and high-stakes racing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chase Elliott claimed victory at the unofficial kickoff event for the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season Sunday night at Bowman Gray Stadium. Elliott showcased his dominance by initiating key moves in the race and pulling away from Ryan Branny during the final 20 laps. Out of the 23 starters, 12 finished on the lead lap, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7512,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[853],"tags":[114],"class_list":{"0":"post-7511","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-nascar"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7511\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}