Chase Elliott returning to the NASCAR Cup Series at Martinsville
Elliott has missed five races after suffering a fractured tibia while snowboarding
Chase Elliott will return to the NASCAR Cup Series at Martinsville.
NASCAR’s most popular driver announced his return from a fractured tibia in a simple tweet Wednesday. Elliott has missed six races after he was injured while snowboarding ahead of the third race of the season at Las Vegas.
See y’all at Martinsville #di9 pic.twitter.com/gm18ZxINCs
— Chase Elliott (@chaseelliott) April 12, 2023
Elliott, 27, has been replaced by Josh Berry in five of those races and Jordan Taylor in the other. Berry finished second at Richmond behind Hendrick Motorsports teammate Kyle Larson.
"We're looking forward to having Chase back in his race car to pick up where he left off," Hendrick Motorsports owner Rick Hendrick said in a statement. "Since the injury, he’s worked extremely hard and focused all his time and energy on returning to the No. 9 team. Throughout the last six weeks, he’s stayed fully engaged with everything we’re doing, and we know he’s chomping at the bit to get on the racetrack and compete for wins."
The 2020 Cup Series champion has a waiver from NASCAR that will allow him to be playoff eligible if he wins a race over the next 18 regular season races. Since Elliott is currently 232 points back of points leader Christopher Bell, it’s extremely unlikely he’ll score enough points to make the 16-driver postseason without a victory.
Kyle Busch won his first Cup Series title in 2015 after missing the first 11 races of the season because of leg injuries suffered in an Xfinity Series crash. Busch went on to win four races in a five-race stretch not long after his return to the cockpit and won the final race of the season to capture the title.
The five races Elliott missed this season were the first races he had missed in his career. Elliott had made 254 consecutive Cup Series starts since he started racing full-time in 2016 and has finished in the top 10 of the points standings in each of his first seven years at NASCAR’s top level. He was involved in a crash in the season-opening Daytona 500 and finished 38th before finishing second to Busch in the second race of the season at Fontana, California.
