By Soumyadeep Saha

Copyright sportskeeda

Chase Elliott thought he would be eliminated after he crashed last week at Bristol, trying to swerve from the top lane to the bottom. He finished 38th, his sixth finish outside of the top 10 in his last eight starts.However, despite all that, the Dawsonville native had enough points not to let his teammate, Alex Bowman, who was the first driver below the cutoff line at the time, pass him. Elliott made the Round of 12. Thanks to his third-place finish at the World Wide Technology Speedway earlier this month.”It worked out, fortunately,” Chase Elliott told SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. “Got really lucky with that, no question.”But going into New Hampshire for this weekend’s race, Elliott feels like he is in a spot that he doesn’t quite deserve.“I just feel like, yeah, you’re kind of in a spot where, ‘Man, we really didn’t deserve to be here based on the week before, let’s go and make the very most of it,'” Elliott continued. “I just feel like there’s nothing to lose for us at this point. We’ve got to make something happen, get some life and get our heads down and just grind it out these next three weeks.”Elliott has 11 previous starts at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, with his best performance being a runner-up finish in 2022. Other than that, the HMS icon has one top-five and a top-10 at the 1.058-mile oval track in Loudon, New Hampshire. Per reports, Hendrick Motorsports’s last win at Hampshire came in 2012 through the hands of Kasey Kahne.“I think New Hampshire has some similarities to Gateway, so I’m looking forward to see how we stack up in that regard,” Elliott added, speaking of his upcoming race.All eyes are now on New Hampshire, which will host the Mobil 1 301 on Sunday, September 21. Fans can watch the race on USA or listen to live radio updates on PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio (2 pm ET onwards).Denny Hamlin says he was not involved in the wreck that took down Chase Elliott at BristolDenny Hamlin, driver of the No. 11 for Joe Gibbs Racing, reacted to any suggestions that he was the one to trigger the wreck that happened on Lap 310, which sent Chase Elliott into the wall. The Chevy star wasn’t able to continue racing after that and was handed a DNF, his second of the 2025 season.To many, it looked like Hamlin ran over John Hunter Nemechek, who then clipped Chase Elliott and spun him out. But a different angle has come to light after Hamlin said on his podcast,“So what it looked like happened is the nine tried to get in a hole, and he was running significantly slower than the cars that were on the freight train running the bottom, and John Hunter didn’t see it coming or didn’t check up in time.”“He hit him, and when he hit him, he stopped in front of me, so I then hit him,” Hamlin explained. “So, no, the contact was from the nine pulling down into a lane, running quite a bit faster, and then we ping pong from there.”Chase Elliott is still in the playoff picture with Denny Hamlin, who currently stands at the top of the driver’s championship standings with an advantage of 26 points above the cutoff line. Elliott’s teammates William Byron and Kyle Larson are ranked second and third on that list, respectively.