Chase Elliott wins Atlanta with last-lap pass for the lead on Brad Keselowski

Chase Elliott put on a thrilling show at his hometown track, making a last-lap pass of Brad Keselowski to earn his first victory of the 2025 season and lock into the Cup Series playoffs.

Keselowski finished second EchoPark Speedway (formerly known as Atlanta Motor Speedway), followed by Alex Bowman, Tyler Reddick and Erik Jones.

Elliott, who lives in Dawsonville, Georgia, led 41 of 260 laps in his No. 9 Chevrolet.

“Unbelievable,” the Hendrick Motorsports star told TNT’s Marty Snider after his second win at the speedway south of Atlanta. “How about that? Are you kidding me? I never in my life. This is unbelievable. Thank you guys so much. What a special car. It was a lot of fun. This right here is something I’ll never forget.”

The complexion of the race was significantly altered by an 18-car crash on a Lap 69 restart.

Among those eliminated in the wreck: pole-sitter Joey Logano, In-Season Challenge top seed Denny Hamlin, Ross Chastain, Daniel Suarez, Chase Briscoe and William Byron.

The Lap 70 crash involved the top two seeds and several other contenders.

“I don’t know why we see guys pushing like dummies early down the backstretch,” said Corey LaJoie, who finished 39th in his return behind the wheel after five races as a TV analyst on Prime. “I don’t know what we’re doing. We just started the stage. I don’t know why we’re pushing like we’re damn bumper cars at Frankie’s Fun Park, but that’s not to be surprised. I think there are a lot of guys who don’t make wise decisions driving these things on speedways. Unfortunately, we were right smack in the middle of it.”

The cleanup caused the second red flag of the event.

The race was stopped earlier for about 15 minutes after a rain shower on Lap 37.

There were 16 laps remaining in the first stage on the ensuing restart, and the racing turned furious after the red flag. The chaos finally broke loose with four laps remaining in the stage as Christopher Bell lost control of his No. 20 Toyota in a Turn 4 wreck that also collected Ryan Blaney, Bubba Wallace, AJ Allmendinger and Austin Dillon.

Blaney’s No. 12 Ford was badly damaged, and he was eliminated in last place — his sixth DNF of the season.

“Story of our year: Getting caught up in other people’s garbage,” Blaney said. “As soon as I feel like we get it going pretty good and find some momentum, we never really seem to have things going our way. Tried to flip the stage and was right in the middle of it. Stinks and that’s the way it goes sometimes.”

Blaney endured the worst of a rough night for Team Penske, which also had Logano and Austin Cindric eliminated in wrecks. Josh Berry, whose No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing Ford is prepared by Penske, also was knocked out with crash damage.

Stage 1 winner: Cindric

Stage 2 winner: Reddick

Next up: Sunday, July 6, 2 p.m. ET at the Chicago Street Race on TNT.