Chase Elliott Dover Winner

DOVER, Del.- It was 322 laps to go Monday afternoon with 17 lead changes in the entire race and many caution flags came out.

In the end, it was Chase Elliott in the #9 car who took the last lead in Lap 348 and never looked back.

"We made some really good adjustments there just past halfway and had a bad restart on that short little stint into the end of Stage 2 and kind of buried us," Elliott said. "We were able to get a couple of them on the green flag run and after that was able to have a good sequence of stops and how the whole thing went out with the cautions and everything kind of worked in our favor."

It's Elliott's first win of the Cup Series season and his second victory at the Monster Mile. He led the race on three different occasions.

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. in the #47 Kroger/The Frozen Farmer car never led in the race but finished as the runner-up.

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Denny Hamlin in the #11 car won Stage 1 but then lost a tire out of the pits sending him to the back of the pack and was in a front stretch collision out of turn three in lap 243. He would finish 21st. Ryan Blaney won Stage 2 and finished in 26th.

For Elliott, the initial win is hopefully a springboard of finishes to come.

"Just need to kind of keep after it here. Obviously it's still very early in the year and we recognize that so we wanna try to stay with it and keep things going."