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Chase Elliott wasn’t around to see the fireworks at the end of last weekend’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Darlington.

Or, for that matter, the fire coming from Kevin Harvick’s car.

Elliott’s playoff opener was over early after the regular-season champion lost control of his No. 9 Chevrolet and brushed the wall in Turns 1 and 2. Chase Briscoe, closing fast and with nowhere to go, collided with Elliott and caused too much damage for him to overcome.

His crew from Hendrick Motorsports tried to repair the broken lower control arm and toe link but ran out of time.

The result was a 36th place finish – dead last – and a big blow in the playoff race. Elliott dropped from the top seed to ninth heading into Sunday’s race at Kansas Speedway, the second of three stops before the field is whittled from 16 to 12.

“It’s not to say that I don’t care,” Elliott said this week, “but I recognize when you have something happen, there’s nothing you can do after the fact. As much as I’d like to go back and change things and have a retry, that’s not how it works. Really, you’re only choice in that situation, having a bad day, is get prepared for the next week.”

In fact, Elliott turned his attention to Kansas before Harvick’s car went up in flames at Darlington, leading to more dialogue over the safety of the Next Gen car, and Erik Jones gave the No. 43 its long-awaited 200th victory.

That last point was welcomed news.

Jones isn’t in the playoffs, which means nobody earned an automatic berth to the next round with a win. So should it come down to the standings for Elliott to advance, the 2020 champion would have a little extra wiggle room.

“I didn’t really have a thought how it would shake out,” said Elliott, who is 14 points ahead of Austin Cindric, the first driver below the cut line. “My thought process was just, ‘Dang, hate that we had our day go like that,’ and I think, you know, in the those moments with the points and everybody being as close as everybody is, you’re going to be in the situation where there’s a lot of guys really close to you, and that’s what it’s going to be like over the course of three weeks.”

Unless he gets a win. That would cure most ills.

Elliott has done it before at Kansas, winning the 2018 race to advance to the round of eight, and he was second at the intermediate track last fall.

Huerta’s IndyCar finale? Colton Herta insists he has no deal to race in Formula One next season, is surprised at the sudden interest from AlphaTauri, and doesn’t really want an exemption to receive the Super License required to compete in the global series.

Is Sunday his final IndyCar race? Herta had no idea Friday.

He heads into the IndyCar season finale at Laguna Seca Raceway as the two-time defending race winner. Herta is not eligible to win the championship – five drivers remain mathematically eligible in the closest title fight since 2003 – but he’s the heavy favorite to win Sunday on the road course.

But he refuses to give much thought to what happens after Sunday, or if he’ll be back in 2023 as an Andretti Autosport driver.

“No matter what I do, if I go (to F1), I want to come back,” Herta said.

Power in title chases: What’s 10 points worth? That’s what Will Power hopes he doesn’t find out while trying to close out the closest IndyCar championship fight in nearly 20 years.

Power takes a 20-point lead into Sunday’s season finale over six-time champion Scott Dixon and Josef Newgarden, Power’s Team Penske teammate and a two-time IndyCar champion. Indianapolis 500 winner Marcus Ericsson remains in contention, as does Scott McLaughlin, who sits 41 points behind teammate Power.

In all, five drivers mathematically have a shot and two contenders, reigning IndyCar champion Alex Palou and Pato O’Ward, were only eliminated last Sunday in IndyCar’s closest title race since 2003 – when the Indy Racing League was called “The IRL.”

But there are plenty of Power fans who believe the Australian could have had some breathing room in this title fight had Team Penske done him any favors.

McLaughlin last week dominated at Portland to win his third race of the season and Power finished second to retain his hold on the points lead. Power definitely did not have a car as good as McLaughlin’s, but challenger Dixon was closing fast behind him in both the race and title fight.

If Team Penske had called for “team orders” and asked McLaughlin to cede the lead to Power, he’d have 10 additional points over Dixon and Newgarden. The call Dixon considered a “no-brainer” never came and now Power must finish no lower than third to clinch the title.

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