Chase Elliott won the unofficial opener to the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season.
Elliott started Sunday night’s Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium on the pole and dominated the race. He drove away from Ryan Blaney over the last 20 laps as just 12 of the 23 cars that started the main event finished on the lead lap.
Blaney made an impressive drive up from starting last but wasn’t able to make a pass on Elliott in the waning laps. Elliott led 171 of the race’s 200 laps, including the first 97 and the final 75.
Denny Hamlin finished third and led 28 laps. Tyler Reddick led one lap. That’s it. That’s how good Elliott was.
The preseason exhibition race was held at the Winston-Salem quarter-mile track for the first time on Sunday after three seasons at a temporary short track at the Los Angeles Coliseum. The track known for its wrecks and fights produced a lot of crashes in the last-chance qualifier that preceded the main event. The main event itself was much calmer.
The 200-lap feature had a halfway break and featured six cautions for crashes. But the last crash came on lap 120 as the rest of the race ran caution-free and Elliott picked his way through lapped traffic to keep the lead and secure the win.
The Cup Series season officially begins on Feb. 16 with the Daytona 500. Elliott, the 2020 Cup Series champion, is one of the favorites to win. He hasn’t yet won the Daytona 500.
Clash at Bowman Gray results
1. Chase Elliott
2. Ryan Blaney
3. Denny Hamlin
4. Joey Logano
5. Bubba Wallace
6. Ross Chastain
7. Austin Cindric
8. Tyler Reddick
9. Shane van Gisbergen
10. Chris Buescher
11. Ryan Preece
12. Christopher Bell
13. Josh Berry
14. Todd Gilliland
15. Kyle Busch
16. Carson However
17. Kyle Larson
18. William Byron
19. Alex Bowman
20. Noah Gragson
21. Brad Keselowski
22. Daniel Suarez
23. Chase Briscoe
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