NASCAR Cup Series Playoff contender Chase Elliott will be one of five drivers that will drop to the rear of the field prior to the start of Sunday’s AutoTrader EchoPark Automotive 500 at Texas Motor Speedway after his Hendrick Motorsports team failed pre-race technical inspection multiple times on Sunday morning.
The defending series champion – who enters the ‘Round of 8’ seeded sixth and two points below the cutline — was scheduled to start the event from the outside of row three. However, this isn’t a new issue for the No. 9 team, with Sunday’s pre-race technical inspection failures marking the sixth time Elliott has started at the rear of the field this season.
Of those five events, the 25-year-old has recorded three top-five and four top-10 finishes, the only exception being at Atlanta Motor Speedway in March, where he finished 38th after an engine failure.
Chase Briscoe (No. 14), Corey LaJoie (No. 7), Garrett Smithley (No. 15), and David Starr (No. 66) also failed pre-race technical inspection multiple times and will lose their original starting spots to drop to the rear on the pace laps. Briscoe was slated to start 26th, with LaJoie 29th, Smithley 36th, and Starr 38th.
At the time of publishing, no other cars are scheduled to start at the rear of the field.
