Chase Elliott isn’t going down without a fight.
The Hendrick Motorsports driver, who is in a must-win situation in Sunday’s penultimate Cup playoff race if he hopes to advance to next week’s championship race in Miami, proved something in Friday’s final practice of the weekend:
His Chevrolet Camaro has speed -- and lots of it.
Elliott was the only driver to exceed 138 mph, clocking a field-best speed of 138.627 mph in the last practice, more than 1 mph faster than second-fastest Ryan Blaney (137.208 mph).
Seven of the eight remaining championship contenders were in the top 10 speed-wise in the final session.
Kevin Harvick (136.913 mph) was third-fastest, followed by Martin Truex Jr. (136.820), non-playoff driver Aric Almirola (136.121), Joey Logano (136.024), non-playoff drivers Alex Bowman (136.581) and Matt DiBenedetto (135.941), Denny Hamlin (135.921) and Kyle Busch (135.619).
The only playoff driver outside the top 10 was Kyle Larson (135.343), who was 11th-fastest.
Qualifying for Sunday’s Bluegreen Vacations 500 takes place Saturday afternoon at 2 p.m. ET (televised on NBCSN). Sunday’s race will start at 2:30 p.m. ET and be televised on NBC.