NASCAR

Larson wins again at ‘The Glen’ as Elliott crowned regular season champion

Fraser Masefield
22 Aug 2022
3 min read

The Hendrick Motorsports NASCAR team, partnered by Acronis, had double cause for celebration at Watkins Glen as Kyle Larson repeated his victory of 2021 and teammate Chase Elliott was crowned regular season champion.

Only a day after winning the NASCAR Xfinity Series race, Larson made it Watkins Glen double after grabbing the lead from teammate Elliott after the final race restart on lap 86. From then on, the defending Cup Series champion was able to hold his advantage for the remaining five laps, as Elliott dropped to fourth behind AJ Allmendinger and Joey Logano by the flag.

“I knew that was my only opportunity to get by him,” Larson is quoted on the official Hendrick motorsports website about his move on Elliott. “I felt like our cars were pretty equal today. Had a lot of fun after the green flag cycle trying to chase him down. Kind of burnt my stuff up a little bit.

“The restarts kept me in it and kept our team in it. Proud of our guys. Good to get another win here at Watkins Glen and get some more bonus points going into the playoffs, which we haven’t had many of those this year. Hopefully this will build on some momentum and we can keep racking up some more points.”

Victory for Larson is his 12th for Hendrick Motorsports and fourth road course victory, the Californian also having triumphed at Watkins Glen last year. Importantly, it means he jumps to second in the point standings with one race to go in the regular season.

For Elliott, his tenth top five finish of a dominant season means that he becomes the regular season champion heading into the play offs, securing him an additional and potentially vital 15 playoff points.

“We’ve never really gone into the playoffs having any large amount of bonus points,” Elliott told HendrickMotorsports.com. “We’ve had a few here and there, which has been nice, but we’ve certainly never positioned ourselves to get those extra 15.”

For Hendrick Motorsports, the Watkins Glen win is their ninth of the season, the historic team’s best mark in the series through 25 races.

“I think it’s a tremendous statement of the consistency and the performance of that team,” added general manager of Hendrick Motorsports, Jeff Andrews. “As competitive as this season has been with 15 different winners to this point and as close as some of those points races are, it’s a testament to Alan (Gustafson, crew chief), Chase and that whole race team to earn that.”

TEAM UP WITH ACRONIS

During the 2021 season and continuing this year, Acronis opened up an exciting #TeamUp Program, giving new and existing service providers the opportunity to support sports partnerships, join the sports ecosystem, attend races and enjoy amazing sports marketing benefits. To find out more, please visit https://www.acronis.com/en-us/lp/msp-sports/

Climb Channel Solutions is a specialty IT distributor and key Acronis partner. The company connects partners, resellers and end-users with emerging technology, a global distribution network, and the sales and marketing support they need to accelerate and scale business in the channel. Acronis’ sponsorship of Hendrick Motorsports will highlight Climb’s commitment to delivering its partners access to the best and fastest-evolving technologies and services available.

Fraser Masefield

Sports news and features writer, web editor and author.

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