Rookie Chase Elliott becomes youngest champion in NASCAR national series

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In: Xfinity Series News

History was made once again tonight at Homestead-Miami Speedway, with NASCAR Nationwide Series Rookie Chase Elliott becoming the youngest champion to ever claim a NASCAR National Series title.

With three wins and 16 Top-5’s for Elliott and the JR Motorsports team, Elliott claimed the Championship title by a 42-point margin of victory. At 18 years, 11 months and 13 days, Elliott is the youngest champion in a NASCAR National Series Championship, and is also the first Rookie of the Year to win a NASCAR National Series Championship.

“It means the world to me—not just for myself but this is a huge accomplishment for our whole team,” Elliot said. “This has allowed me to sit back and think about what has made it possible this year, but there are a lot of great racers and people that have gotten me here that I want to thank.”

While Elliott stole the Championship show tonight at Homestead-Miami Speedway, it was the veteran driver Matt Kenseth who took the Ford EcoBoost 300 checkered flag.

Kenseth has had several close calls to make it to Victory Lane, and was finally able to celebrate a race win Saturday night at Homestead-Miami Speedway in the Nationwide Series. The win was the first Nationwide Series win of 2014 for Kenseth, and his second victory in 13 Nationwide Series races at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

“It’s always important to win, it’s not like I tried harder today than I did the last 35 weeks,” Kenseth said. “It’s been a good year and been pretty solid, we’ve just had a lot of circumstances toward the end of the race where we haven’t won. I thought we were going to have that again this week when I messed up and let Kyle (Larson) get by me, but thankful we had a chance to redeem ourselves and got rolling pretty good on the last one.”

Roger Penske and Team Penske took home the Owner’s Championship for the NASCAR Nationwide Series, with Chevrolet winning the manufacturer’s championship. All three manufacturers were crowned winners tonight at Homestead-Miami Speedway, with Elliott and Chevrolet taking home the driver and manufacturer’s championships, Team Penske and Ford taking home the Owner’s Championship, and Kenseth and Toyota taking home the Ford EcoBoost 300 race win.

Homestead Miami Speedway PR

Speedway Digest Staff
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