NASCAR: Top 5 controversial moments of the 2021 season

Controversial moment no. 5: Harvick vs. Elliott; Elliott’s car falls apart

Three weeks after the Kevin Harvick vs. Chase Elliott showdown took place at “The Last Great Colosseum”, the two drivers found themselves in a very different position at the start of the second playoff elimination race at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval.

Both drivers, who had raced their way into the second round on points prior to the end of the first elimination race, found themselves in danger of being eliminated from the playoffs if even one thing went wrong.

At the start of stage three, Harvick entered turn seven behind Elliott, accelerated through the center of the corner, and sent him into the wall. Elliott was able to save his car from complete destruction, but the rear end of his #9 Chevrolet appeared to be just barely hanging on to the rest of the vehicle.

After extensive repairs, Elliott found himself back on the track with his bumper, deck lid and quarter panels heavily taped up. As he began to run laps and run over the curbs around the 17-turn course, some of the tape came loose, and eventually, the rear bumper cover began flapping like a flag behind the car.

The sheet metal hung on for a number of laps before it fell off and onto the track, prompting NASCAR to throw a caution flag, which helped Elliott catch back up to the rest of the lead-lap cars.

Several fans were quick to call out NASCAR for allowing Elliott to ride around with sheet metal flapping around, sheet metal which many believed would fall off — like it ended up doing. Fans cited how, in other situations, drivers would be black-flagged and forced to pit to fix the issue, but that was not the case for Elliott.

Some fans even went as far as claiming that NASCAR was allowing the #9 team to get away with this simply because Elliott is the most popular driver and that it would be detrimental to a significant portion of the sport’s fan base to penalize him, a move which would almost certainly eliminate him from the playoffs.

Why Elliott was allowed to continue racing without penalty ultimately came down to the fact that the part which flew off of his car is not a piece that NASCAR requires on road courses.

Still, many fans didn’t buy into that explanation and continued to criticize NASCAR, especially after the race when Elliott had managed to advance in the playoffs and Harvick had been eliminated with a later crash.