NASCAR: Chase Elliott out indefinitely, more details revealed
By Asher Fair
Chase Elliott is set to miss “several weeks” of NASCAR Cup Series action after fracturing his left tibia in a Friday snowboarding accident in Colorado.
On Friday night, news broke that Hendrick Motorsports’ Chase Elliott had been involved in a snowboarding accident in Colorado, just ahead of the NASCAR race weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Elliott was said to have suffered a leg injury, for which he was set to undergo surgery later in the evening, and he was immediately ruled out for Sunday’s Pennzoil 400 Cup Series race.
Additional details were revealed about the nature of the 27-year-old Dawsonville, Georgia native’s injury on Saturday afternoon, with Hendrick Motorsports sharing that he had suffered a fractured left tibia, a bone in his leg. For reference, Elliott uses his left foot to brake.
He did undergo a three-hour surgery on Friday night and is expected to be released from the hospital later today.
But for the time being, Chase Elliott has been ruled out from NASCAR Cup Series competition.
There is no specific timetable on a potential return, but he is said to be out for “several weeks”, which indicates three or four at the least.
Considering the fact that nothing on the injury, beyond it being a leg injury, was revealed on Friday and he underwent surgery on the same night, this is an outcome that fortunately was not a lot worse.
Josh Berry, the full-time driver of the No. 8 JR Motorsports Chevrolet in the Xfinity Series, is set to replace Elliott in this Sunday afternoon’s 267-lap race around the four-turn, 1.5-mile (2.414-kilometer) Las Vegas, Nevada oval, and likely in all of the other races Elliott ends up missing.
Hendrick Motorsports have applied for a playoff waiver to keep Elliott championship eligible, indicating that there is optimism surrounding a potential return at some point during the regular season.
A waiver simply means that Elliott can still qualify for the playoffs despite not competing in all 26 regular season races, either by winning a race or getting in on points. He will score no points nor playoff points during his absence.
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Through two races in 2023, Elliott sits in 14th place in the point standings with a top finish of second at Auto Club Speedway. A wreck ended his day early in the season-opening Daytona 500.