2016 Daytona 500: Pole-sitter Chase Elliott crashes early

A week that begin with such promise for Chase Elliott came to a disheartening conclusion, as the rookie crashed in the early laps of Sunday’s Daytona 500.

The 20-year-old Elliott followed becoming the youngest pole-sitter in the Daytona 500’s 58-year history last week by leading the first three laps of NASCAR’s biggest race. An encouraging debut for the driver making his debut as the fulltime replacement for the now retired Jeff Gordon.

But after Hendrick Motorsports teammate Dale Earnhardt Jr. passed him for the top position on Lap 4, Elliott shuffled out of the lead draft and fell towards the back. Then 15 laps later, he lost control while running in the middle of a pack of cars off Turn 4, spinning across the nose of Carl Edwards’ Toyota and through frontstretch infield grass.

Elliott was uninjured, though the same couldn’t be said for his No. 24 Chevrolet, which sustained extensive damage when the frontend dug into the grass separating the track from pit road.

“It had been such a fun week and you hate to end the race before it even got started,” Elliott said. “I hate it for everybody at less than 20 laps in and have something dumb like that happen. I apologize to my guys. We will try and get back out there I guess and make some laps.”

After repairs were made, Elliott returned to the track and finished 37th.

Elliott was not alone in finding trouble exiting Turn 4. Earnhardt had a similar accident on Lap 169 that saw his car hook left and crash nose-first into the inside retaining wall just before pit road.

“We will just have to look past it and get on for Atlanta (the second race of the season),” Elliott said. “That is the most important thing now. Can’t get caught up in what happened today, it is irrelevant now.”