NBC Sports' Kyle Petty shares his thoughts on Chase Elliott's day in Watkins Glen after the No. 9 Chevrolet ran out of fuel in Sunday's race.
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00:00 All right, Watkins Glen, the last road course race before the playoffs.
00:05 Chase Elliott's last shot?
00:08 We've got Daytona, but it may have been his last legit shot
00:12 to control his own destiny.
00:13 And we go back to yesterday, and it was just a series of errors.
00:17 If we go to Saturday, even Chase Elliott made the comment.
00:20 I think that's the biggest story coming out of Watkins Glen, made the comment.
00:24 I messed up on Saturday qualifying, put us in a hole at 15th.
00:27 Anytime we run well at a road course, we qualify well on Saturday.
00:32 So they lost on Saturday, which meant they were in a bind on Sunday.
00:35 Allen employed a great strategy.
00:38 He took them from 15th to 6th or 7th by pitting early on Sunday.
00:43 But then the way the race played out and the way and the speed the car had,
00:46 they had to stretch their fuel mileage.
00:48 Was it miscommunication, miscalculation?
00:51 I don't know.
00:52 Uncharacteristic is what it was.
00:55 This team made a mistake and ran Chase out of fuel.
00:58 And when he was out of fuel on the back stretch, his day was over.
01:00 There was nothing anyone could do.
01:02 And I think we heard it in Allen's voice.
01:04 We heard it in Chase's voice.
01:06 We saw it in their posture on the pit box.
01:09 They knew that they had put themselves in a bind.
01:11 To go into Daytona when a must-win situation,
01:16 that's a catastrophe for a team like this.
01:18 On the other side of the Hendrick coin, how about William Byron?
01:22 He has come into his own as a race car driver.
01:25 Winning the way he won, I swear, there were moments I thought Jeff Gordon was
01:29 driving that 24 car.
01:30 Phenomenal performance by he and Rudy.
01:33 I think they make an incredible team.
01:35 And I said it yesterday in pre-race.
01:37 Opportunity.
01:38 This was an opportunity for William Byron to reestablish himself
01:42 as a championship contender.
01:44 And I think we roll into the playoffs.
01:46 Everybody's pointing at that 24 team, William Byron and Rudy,
01:50 and saying we're gonna have to go through those guys
01:52 to win that trophy in Phoenix.