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Chevrolet Misses Podium By A Mile At NASCAR Cup Playoffs Round 5

Last weekend’s 1000Bulbs.com 500 at Talladega Superspeedway wasn’t Chevrolet’s best Monster Energy NASCAR Cup showing – not even close. Of the three 2018 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 stock car drivers still in the playoffs, Kyle Larson, driver of the No. 42 Chip Ganassi Racing Camaro, performed the best, earning an eleventh-place finish. Fellow Chevrolet stock car playoffs contenders Chase Elliott (No. 9, Hendrick Motorsports) and Alex Bowman (No. 88, Hendrick Motorsports) finished 31st and 33rd, respectively.

Alex Bowman bore the worst of it, wrecking late in the race with three laps remaining, and ensuring that he’ll have to win next weekend’s race at Kansas Speedway in order to advance to the Round of 8. But Larson, too, had to contend with an array of issues, including a blown left-rear tire and a spin on the backstretch near the end of Stage 2. He trails Toyota Camry stock car driver Martin Truex Jr., who is currently eighth in the standings, by 26 points, and he’ll have to more than make up the gap in order to proceed to the Round of 8.

Photo: Tom Copeland/Chevy Racing

Photo: Tom Copeland/Chevy Racing

Chase Elliott is already guaranteed a seat at the table as the field of NASCAR Cup Playoffs contenders narrows from 12 to 8, owing to his win at Dover International Speedway.

This year marks the first season of competition for GM’s 2018 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 stock car design, and so far, it’s been plagued by difficulties. Chevrolet had the fewest overall wins of any manufacturer competing in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup regular season, with just two. In August, Darrell “Bubba” Wallace Jr. pinned the blame for Chevrolet’s less-than-satisfactory regular season showing squarely on the car’s design, saying his car “handles way worse than [Kevin] Harvick or Kyle [Busch]’s car at 200 mph.”

With both Kyle Larson and Alex Bowman likely facing elimination after next weekend’s race, Chase Elliott could find himself the lone remaining Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 driver left in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Playoffs.

Stay tuned for the latest Chevrolet Camaro NASCAR news.

Aaron Brzozowski is a writer and motoring enthusiast from Detroit with an affinity for '80s German steel. He is not active on the Twitter these days, but you may send him a courier pigeon.

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