Chase Elliott will drive the No. 1 Chevrolet for JR Motorsports in the NASCAR Xfinity Series race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course, the team announced Saturday morning (Aug. 14).
Elliott will replace Michael Annett, who continues to recover from surgery to address a stress fracture in his leg.
Annett, the winner of the 2019 season opener at Daytona International Speedway, first sat out at Atlanta Motor Speedway on July 10 due to the stress fracture and subsequently missed the next week’s event at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
Annett underwent leg surgery during NASCAR’s hiatus during the Olympic break and returned to action at Watkins Glen International one week ago en route to an 11th-place finish.
In Friday’s lone practice session, Annett only turned two laps and was the slowest of the 44 drivers.
Elliott, the 2014 Xfinity Series champion, returns to the series for the first time since a one-off appearance in 2019 in the same Daytona race in which Annett went to victory lane. In 81 career starts, Elliott has five wins, 33 top fives and 65 top 10s.
Elliott is the winningest active Cup Series driver on road courses with seven such victories, putting him third all-time behind Jeff Gordon (nine) and Tony Stewart (eight).
Qualifying for the Pennzoil 150 at Indianapolis is at 10:05 a.m. ET and can be seen live on the NBC Sports App, with live race coverage set to begin at 4 p.m. ET on NBC Sports Network.
About the author
Pocono Raceway is his home track and he's been attending races there since 2002. A fan since he was three years old, Zach is living out a dream covering racing, including past coverage of ARCA and IndyCar.
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