Chase Elliott has never gotten to two wins this quickly.
He prevailed in the Würth 400 — the 11th race of the NASCAR season — on May 3 at Texas Motor Speedway, just four races after his first victory of 2026 at Martinsville.
In his first 10 full-time Cup Series campaigns, he had never claimed two wins before the 17th Sunday.
“It was really cool to get a win as early as we did at Martinsville,” Elliott said. “Now, to have two this early in the year is really special.”
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But Elliott knows it doesn’t guarantee anything going forward.
“Long year,” he said. “Lot of racing left. We’ll try to build on it.”
Here are three takeaways.
1. Chase Elliott won after final restart at Texas
Elliott led a race-high 87 laps.
He jumped to the lead with 29 to go and was in front when the final of the afternoon’s seventh caution flags flew for a Corey Heim spin with 11 laps remaining. The green flag returned with four laps left, and Elliott held off Denny Hamlin and Alex Bowman to cross the finish line first.
It looked like another caution might occur as the leaders approached the white flag. Kyle Busch threw John Hunter Nemechek into the wall. But Nemechek made it out of harm’s way, and the yellow stayed holstered.
“I have not been a huge fan of this place, and I’ve made that very obvious,” Elliott said. “But to continue to work hard, and I really think this is a testament to the whole 9 team.”
The win was his second at Texas. His first came in 2024.
2. Corey Heim spends lots of time in front
Heim finished 31st at Texas, the worst of his three Cup Series starts this year.
With 11 laps left, he spun without contact from another car. He smashed the wall and headed to the garage.
But he led more laps than anyone not named Elliott. He fronted the pack for 69 circuits around the track. Many of those were in the final stage, when Heim and Chase Briscoe took their final pit stops later than the rest of the field.
Heim finally sauntered down pit road after Elliott overtook him for the lead with 29 laps to go.
The 23-year-old has now run 10 Cup Series races across three seasons.
3. Next race on NASCAR schedule comes on road course
Shane van Gisbergen is thawing out as we speak.
Yes, that means a road course is next on the schedule.
NASCAR hasn’t visited one of those since the third weekend of the year at COTA. But May 10 will bring a visit to Watkins Glen for the Go Bowling at The Glen. It will start at 3 p.m. and feature 100 laps around the 2.45-mile layout.
It’s also the last stop before the All-Star Race on May 17.
Tyler Reddick captured the first road-course checkers of the season. But van Gisbergen, who hasn’t tallied a top-10 since COTA, is NASCAR’s resident road ace. He triumphed at Watkins Glen in 2025.
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: NASCAR takeaways: Chase Elliott’s wins have never come this early
Reporting by Chris Vinel, Daytona Beach News-Journal / The Daytona Beach News-Journal
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
