Chase Elliott still looking for 'straight answer' from NASCAR over Section 7 Pocono speeding penalty

Last week at Pocono Raceway, Chase Elliott, Kyle Larson, Austin Cindric, and Daniel Suárez received speeding penalties on pit road. It was a pivotal moment late in the NASCAR race, and it cost the 9 team.

Chase Elliott was capable of running up front. In fact, had the penalty not happened, Larson and Elliott would have been starting in the top-5. Instead, they had to go to the back of the field and drive up through traffic.

This week, Elliott was asked about the penalty. He had not received a speeding penalty on pit road in 92 races before Pocono.

“I don’t know to be honest with you. I haven’t gotten a straight answer, you know. You’re not going to get a straight answer from the NASCAR front, which is fine,” Chase Elliott said, via Bob Pockrass of FOX Sports. “But it just, yeah, it was a bummer. Whether the zone was too short or the zone wasn’t short enough, we had made X amount of pit stops throughout the day that I wasn’t speeding. You know, everybody else, besides the handful of guys that got caught, didn’t speed either. So, I just kind of chalk it up to a mistake on my part, really at the end of the day. There’s nothing I can do about it, so what does it matter now, really? You know, just try not to make that mistake again.

“There was certainly, from how we would typically set our pit road, that had us in a different box than what we would typically be on each weekend, and I just didn’t do a great job of keeping that in mind throughout the race and ultimately flashed red in the zone. On their screen. I don’t feel like I did anything different, I’m not talking about my bubbles, I don’t feel like I did anything different on my end than I had done all day. Just the timing of it and everything else is certainly – sped in their book which is, they make the rules, right? So, off we went.”

Chase Elliott came up short last week. The penalty was devastating to his chances of winning. There is a silver lining here for Elliott. The No. 9 team is leading the Cup Series regular-season points race.

Elliott leads his teammate Larson by three points. Tyler Reddick and Denny Hamlin are within 20 points of Elliott. Four drivers are going wire to wire these last five weeks. In the end, one of them will be the regular season champion.

The NASCAR Cup Series has a few weeks left. Will Chase Elliott overcome the Pocono incident to win the regular season?