MARTINSVILLE, Va. -- Chase Elliott didn't earn the win, but he possibly took a big step in becoming a championship race-car driver Sunday at Martinsville Speedway.
Elliott raced well at one of NASCAR's toughest tracks, roughed up a past champion to take the lead late and then minced no words as he retaliated against a veteran whom Elliott felt took his potential first career win and a spot in the championship away from him.
Elliott has six career second-place finishes, due in part to some faulty restarts.
He nearly won the Martinsville race on the restart with four laps left in regulation as he smacked Brad Keselowski for the lead. But a lap later, he found himself up against the wall after getting spun by Denny Hamlin.
Elliott ran into Hamlin on the cool-down lap.
"My momma always said if you don't have anything nice not to say anything at all," Elliott said. "So, it's not even worth my time. We'll just go on to Texas [next week]. ... I don't know what his problem was.
"What happened in Turn 3 was over the line. It's just unnecessary."
The fans cheered Elliott throughout his postrace interviews.
"These fans have been coming here from a long time, and they know when somebody gets wrecked and somebody has a nice fight for the lead, and that wasn't one," Elliott said.
Elliott probably gained a ton of fans Sunday night. And a lot of respect from his team.
He finished 38th and 20th in his first two Martinsville races and then 12th last October. In April, he finished third.
"He did a great job," crew chief Alan Gustafson said. "This is a tough track for us to start. His rookie year, he didn't have much success and ran good in the spring.
"The test was terrible for us two weeks ago. Just terrible. We took a different car, we did a lot of work, and he did a lot of work and came back and obviously had a car that could win."
Gustafson said he expects drivers to have contact for the lead.
"I know Brad is not happy about what Chase did to Brad," Gustafson said. "I'm sure he's not. And I'm sure the team's not. But at the end of the day, he didn't wreck him."
Elliott has a tough road ahead, as he is eighth in the standings and 26 points behind the cutoff. The good news? He has been running well enough to win races lately, and a win in the next two weeks is not out of the question.
"He's improved," Gustafson said. "He's done an incredible job. It's unfortunate that race wins have eluded us, because I think that's the only thing that we haven't been able to do this year.
"We've done everything else."
Xfinity Series: Bell doing final three
Christopher Bell, who earned his first career NASCAR Xfinity Series victory Oct. 21 at Kansas Speedway, will compete in the final three series events.
He'll be doing that while also racing for a championship (at least for two more weeks) in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series. Even with an eighth-place finish Saturday, he has a 45-point cushion on the cutoff in trucks.
Since he won in the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 18 car at Kansas, that team will run for the owners championship -- likely with Ryan Preece behind the wheel. Bell will be in the JGR No. 20, which also hopes to be among the final four in contention for the owners title.
Bell is used to running in multiple divisions on a weekend, as he has often done it at USAC and other sprint-car events.
"I've always done better whenever I can run double duty, or even triple duty in some cases, because the more track time helps me out a lot," Bell said. "The Xfinity cars go a little bit faster, they don't have much faster, and everything will slow down when I get in the truck series.
"I'm looking forward to it. I think it will be an advantage."
Camping World Truck Series: Veterans in good shape
Matt Crafton and Johnny Sauter, the two past champions in the truck playoffs, didn't get the automatic bid they were looking for, but a second for Crafton and third for Sauter allowed them to put distance between them and those challenging them for spots among the four finalists.
Sauter, second in points, is 42 points ahead of fifth-place Austin Cindric, while Crafton is 27 points ahead.
Both squandered opportunities to win Martinsville. Sauter had the best truck in winning the second stage, but then a slow pit stop put him seventh with 90 laps remaining.
Crafton won the opening stage and had the lead until a late restart, when Noah Gragson passed him with 10 laps remaining for his first career truck win.
"This one is going to piss me off for a while," Crafton said. "We had a good truck. ... I don't worry about the stage points. I just know that I lost the race."
Sauter felt racing at Martinsville can be "ridiculous" because of the amount of contact they have.
"The last three races have been pretty tough, and I knew that we needed to come out here with a good run," Sauter said. "We got some points, I guess. I just really wanted to get that win and get it out of the way. ... We just didn't execute."