NASCAR star Chase Elliott returns to Atlanta comfort at home track after Daytona 500 disappointment

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NASCAR star Chase Elliott returns to Atlanta comfort at home track after Daytona 500 disappointment

2026-02-22 02:48 Last Updated At：02:50

After an emotionally draining and physically punishing Daytona 500 finish, Chase Elliott is back in his happy place — for the most part — this weekend at Echo Park Speedway.

NASCAR’s eight-time most popular driver lives about 80 miles from the track south of Atlanta, so the Dawsonville native can sleep in his own bed if he pleases.

That’s if he chooses to deal with the traffic.

“I say it all the time, but I enjoy coming down here,” Elliott said a day ahead of Sunday’s 400-miler in suburban Hampton, the second race of the 2026 Cup Series season. “It’s nice to have the option to go home. I’ve still got to deal with Atlanta traffic, but that’s OK and worth it.”

The Hendrick Motorsports star will welcome the respite after a last-lap heartbreak in the Feb. 15 season opener, the latest of his 11 failed attempts at The Great American Race. Elliott led with the white flag in sight at Daytona International Speedway before his No. 9 Chevrolet was turned hard into the outside wall.

He’s fine physically, but the pain lingered from another miss at winning NASCAR’s biggest race (which his Hall of Fame father, Bill, won in 1985 and ’87).

“Just a huge bummer for sure,” Elliott said. “Crashing like that, it’s never fun, but it’s more just processing how close you were to winning. That can be a challenging thing. Fortunately and unfortunately, I have experienced other losses like that. You look back and run through things that you could have done differently, and that I wish I had. Just hope that we get another chance.”

The venue formerly called Atlanta Motor Speedway will offer a similar test of split-second skills. The 1.54-mile oval was transformed four years ago into a high-banked “drafting track” (similar in style to Daytona and Talladega Superspeedway).

In eight races since the reconfiguration, Elliott has two wins and a series-best average finish of 9.14 at Atlanta. He has led the fourth-most laps (166) with lead-lap finishes in all of his starts there since 2022.

He will begin fourth of 38 cars Sunday after qualifying was rained out. Daytona 500 winner Tyler Reddick will be on the pole, but Elliott will be a favorite. According to Racing Insights analytics, he ranks first in passing and second on restarts at drafting tracks.

Last year, Elliott was eighth with 10 laps left but charged to the front with drafting help from teammate Alex Bowman, nipping Brad Keselowski on the last lap for the win.

“Everything happens a little quicker,” Elliott said of racing at Atlanta. “The straightaways being as short as they are, things happen fast, like in double time.”

That often makes for perilous situations. Four of the past eight races at Atlanta ended under caution, and a record 36 of 40 cars were involved in 10 yellow flags last June.

Wreck avoidance is a strength for Elliott, who is among NASCAR’s steadiest drivers. Consistent results will earn a greater reward in the Chase, the 10-race championship run that has been reintroduced this year in place of the elimination playoffs from the past 12 seasons.

Elliott would have won his 2020 championship under the old and new title systems. NASCAR analyst Steve Letarte, a former winning crew chief for Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Jeff Gordon, believes Elliott will benefit the most from the return of the Chase.

“Chase Elliott races a little like his personality,” Letarte said. “He’s very respectful. He’s levelheaded. He makes a lot of good decisions. He operates at 99% and just chugs along. He’d be the one I’d have circled that the format suits the best.”

Having grown up watching the Chase, the 30-year-old Elliott likes the “very genuine, very original” format and his chances at excelling in the title structure, though he believes he can win any week, too.

“My confidence in our whole group maintains at a high level,” he said. “Whether we’re coming off a bad or good week, I know we can get ourselves in the right position to succeed.”

NASCAR is searching for a fan who interrupted a postrace interview with Daniel Suarez. The Spire Motorsports driver was on camera and speaking in Spanish to Fox Deportes when a man clad in wraparound sunglasses leaned into the microphone from behind, said “47, 47, baby” and then tapped Suarez twice on the shoulder before walking away.

On this week’s “Hauler Talk” podcast, managing director of communications Mike Forde said the incident was being taken “seriously” by NASCAR’s operations and security teams. “If we do find out who this person is, it’s certainly not going to end well for this particular person,” Forde said.

Suarez finished 13th in his debut last week for Spire Motorsports’ No. 7 Chevrolet. In the past four seasons with Trackhouse Racing, Atlanta was among his best tracks with two runner-up finishes and a victory in 2024.

“When they changed the track, I’d say 80% of drivers were negative,” Suarez said. “I was part of the 20% I like new challenges, and something new is the sign of an opportunity.”

The former competition director of Joe Gibbs Racing has responded to a lawsuit from the team that he allegedly embarked on “a brazen scheme to steal JGR’s most sensitive information."

Chris Gabehart, who has joined Spire Motorsports in a managerial position, posted on social media that the claims were “frivolous and retaliatory” and said a third-party expert had examined his laptop, cell phone and Google Drive and “found no evidence to support the baseless allegations in JGR’s lawsuit. We even offered JGR the opportunity to do a similar review of Spire’s systems. JGR refused that offer and filed this spiteful lawsuit instead.”

As crew chief for Denny Hamlin from 2019-24, Gabehart oversaw two Daytona 500 victories and three appearances in the championship round.

Ryan Blaney (+850) is favored by BetMGM Sportsbook. ... Tyler Reddick’s Daytona 500 win marked the seventh consecutive race on a drafting track that ended with a last-lap pass, the longest streak in Cup Series history.

AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing

Moscow marks Victory Day with a scaled down Red Square parade under tight security

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday voiced confidence of victory in Ukraine as he oversaw a military parade on Red Square commemorating the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II — a show that didn't include heavy weapons for the first time in nearly two decades.

Security was tight in Moscow as Putin and several foreign leaders attended the parade, which was scaled down even as a U.S.-brokered three-day ceasefire eased concerns about possible Ukrainian attempts to disrupt the festivities.

Putin, in power for more than a quarter-century, has used Victory Day, Russia’s most important secular holiday, to showcase the country’s military might and rally support for his military action in Ukraine, now in its fifth year.

Speaking at the parade, Putin hailed Russian troops fighting in Ukraine, declaring that they “face an aggressive force that is armed and supported by the entire bloc of NATO," and are fighting for a “just cause.”

“Victory has always been and will be ours,” Putin said, as columns of troops lined up on Red Square. “The key to success is our moral strength, courage and valor, our unity and ability to endure anything and overcome any challenge.”

But in a notable shift this year, the parade took place without tanks, missiles and other heavy equipment, aside from a traditional flyover of combat jets.

Officials explained the sudden change of format by the “current operational situation” and said that additional security measures have been taken in response to the threat of Ukrainian attacks. State television commentators said that the heavy weaponry was more needed at the battlefield in Ukraine.

For the first time, Saturday's parade featured troops from North Korea, a tribute to Pyongyang that sent its soldiers to fight alongside Moscow forces to repel a Ukrainian incursion into Russia's Kursk region.

Russia declared a unilateral ceasefire for Friday and Saturday, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced a truce that was supposed to begin on May 6, but neither of them held as the parties traded blame for continuing attacks.

U.S. President Donald Trump announced Friday that Russia and Ukraine have bowed to his request for a ceasefire running Saturday through Monday and an exchange of prisoners, declaring that the break in fighting could be the “beginning of the end” of the war.

Zelenskyy, who said earlier this week that the Russian authorities “fear drones may buzz over Red Square” on May 9, followed up on Trump's statement by issuing a decree mockingly permitting Russia to hold its Victory Day celebrations on Saturday, declaring Red Square temporarily off-limits for Ukrainian strikes.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov shrugged off Zelenskyy’s decree as a “silly joke.” “We don’t need anyone’s permission to be proud of our Victory Day,” Peskov told reporters.

Russia’s bigger and better-equipped military has been making slow but steady gains along the more than 1,000-kilometer (over 600-mile) front line. Ukraine has hit back with increasingly efficient long-range attacks, striking Russian energy facilities, manufacturing plants and military depots. It has developed drones capable of reaching targets over 1,000 kilometers (more than 600 miles) deep into Russia, far beyond its capabilities before 2022.

Russian authorities warned that if Ukraine attempts to disrupt Saturday’s festivities, Russia will carry out a “massive missile strike on the center of Kyiv.” The Russian Defense Ministry warned the civilian population there and employees of foreign diplomatic missions of “the need to leave the city promptly.” The EU said its diplomats wouldn’t leave the Ukrainian capital despite Russian threats.

Putin has used Victory Day celebrations to encourage national pride and underline Russia’s position as a global power. The Soviet Union lost 27 million people in 1941-45 in what it calls the Great Patriotic War, an enormous sacrifice that left a deep scar in the national psyche and remains a rare point of consensus in the nation’s divisive history under Communist rule.

“We celebrate it with feelings of pride and love for our country, with understanding of our shared duty to defend the interests and future of our Motherland,” Putin said at the parade.

“Our soldiers suffered colossal losses, made a colossal sacrifice in the name of freedom and dignity of the peoples of Europe, became the embodiment of courage and nobility, fortitude and humanity, and crowned themselves with the great glory of a grandiose victory.”

Victory Day parades on Red Square have involved a broad array of heavy weapons — from armored vehicles to nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles — every year since 2008. Smaller parades are held elsewhere across the country, but this time many of them have also been pared down or even canceled altogether for security reasons.

The authorities on Saturday ordered restrictions on all mobile internet access and text messaging services in the Russian capital, citing the need to ensure public safety. The government has methodically tightened internet censorship and established increasingly stringent controls over online activities, causing rumblings and rare public expressions of discontent.

Malaysia’s King Sultan Ibrahim Iskandar, Laos President Thongloun Sisoulith, Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, Uzbekistan's President Shavkat Mirziyoyev and Belarus’ authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko attended the festivities in the Russian capital.

Prime Minister Robert Fico of Slovakia, a European Union member, laid flowers at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier memorial just outside the Kremlin walls but stayed away from the Red Square parade. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz criticized Fico’s trip, saying, "I deeply regret this, and we will discuss his visit to Moscow with him.”

Speaking at a meeting with Putin in the Kremlin, Fico bemoaned what he called a new “Iron Curtain” in Europe that hampered trade, and emphasized the importance of Russia's energy supplies to Slovakia. Putin hailed the Slovak leader for conducting a “sovereign” foreign policy and honoring the memory of fallen Red Army soldiers.