Blaney and Elliott agree: If you wreck, make sure you win

Blaney had passed Elliott with one of 35 laps to go in Tuesday night’s Busch Clash on the Daytona International Speedway Road Course but Elliott had worked his way back to Blaney’s rear bumper coming to the checkered flag.

As the two entered the frontstretch chicane, Elliott appeared to plow into Blaney’s right-side, sending him into a spin. Elliott, however, also lost momentum in the move and Kyle Busch drove by both to pick up the unexpected win in the non-points event.

“Chase and I know each other well. I know he didn’t do it on purpose. But sending it off in there hard like anybody would do, it’s just a shame we both got taken out or neither one of us won the race,” Blaney said.

“If you’re going to make a move like that make sure you win the race. Don’t let the third-place guy do it.”

Elliott, the 2020 Cup Series champion, agreed with that assessment.

“Neither one of us won. That’s the big one,” Elliott said. “I was close enough to drive it in there and I feel like I’d be mad at myself for not at least trying. Obviously, I don’t mean to wreck anybody, especially him.

“Some guys I wouldn’t mind. But he’s not one of them. Hopefully, he’s not too mad at me. I feel like you’ve got to go for it here in an event like this in any situation. I can’t be sorry about going for the win, but I certainly didn’t mean to wreck him.

“If I’m sorry about trying to win a race I’m in the wrong business.”

Blaney said he was a little surprised Elliott had the ability to run him down again after Blaney passed him for the lead. On the previous caution, Elliott had stayed out on the track because his team was out of new tires.

“We saved a set (of tires) and got back to second there and his car was really good. I had to use up a lot to get to him and I kind of tried to protect and I drove into the last corner really deep to try to make sure I didn’t get dive-bombed like that, but we just came together there,” Blaney said.

“What are you going to do?”