Chase Elliott celebrates after winning a NASCAR Cup Series race at Kansas Speedway in Kansas City, Kan., on Sunday. (AP photo)

KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Hendrick Motorsports got off to a slow start in NASCAR’s playoffs despite starting the three-round title pursuit with the regular-season champion and all four of its drivers in the title hunt.

Something was off immediately as Chase Elliott’s 17th-place finish in the playoff opener at Darlington was the best of the Hendrick four and Alex Bowman, who narrowly made the 16-driver field, was immediately in danger of elimination.

Joe Gibbs Racing swept the first three playoff races — and Bowman was indeed knocked out when the field was cut to 12 drivers — then Ryan Blaney of Team Penske won the opening race of the second round.

It took until Sunday at Kansas Speedway for a Hendrick driver to finally get on the board as Elliott stole the victory in overtime by driving from 10th to the checkered flag in a sneaky, two-lap sprint. The victory locked Elliott into the third round of the playoffs alongside Blaney, with the remaining six slots to be filled after this Sunday’s race on the hybrid road course/oval at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

The Elliott win at Kansas was unbelievable to everyone including his team. Vice chairman Jeff Gordon was hoarse from the celebrations.

“You’ll take the win however you can get it. Obviously it’s a huge spark for the 9 team, but you also want to execute solid races,” Gordon said. “I think we saw first round we didn’t execute very well, and it looked sloppy. I think we realize we’re on our heels a little bit.”

Elliott’s win doesn’t mean things are suddenly fixed. Elliott is in the round of eight, and Kyle Larson and William Byron head to Charlotte above the cutline and not in imminent danger of elimination.

Still, Byron wasn’t very good at Kanasas and ran near the back of the field until a flurry of late cautions changed the entire race. As unbelievable as Elliott’s win, Byron inexplicably finished ninth.

“The 24 was the one that was kind of the eye opener. They were pretty far off,” Gordon said. “They come out of here with a top-10 because they didn’t give up either. That one’s got us scratching our heads, and we’ll go back and diagnose kind of what they went through and why they were in that position. Just glad they pulled a good finish together there to get the points they needed.”

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AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing