Jul
Despite continuing to lead the NASCAR Cup Series in points along the stretch, Chase Elliott’s performance had fallen short of expectations.
But nothing removes the seeds of uncertainty like a triumph.
In Sunday’s race at Nashville (Tenn.) Superspeedway, Elliott’s No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports finally got going after two interruptions, and he held off Kurt Buch to claim his second victory of the 2022 campaign.
Elliott had a high performance of ninth in the last four races, which came after three straight results of 21st or worse.
The good thing was that the harm was not severe because he had amassed such a big points advantage. The negative was the mounting annoyance brought on by the circuit’s dismal performance.
“Look, it’s fun to win regardless I feel like. But I was really proud of a couple things. One, proud of having the past month-and-a-half, two months that we’ve had been horrendous,” Elliott, 26, said. “I’ve crashed about 10 times and we’ve had a lot of stuff happen to end up having bad finishes.
“You never want that, whether it’s in a string of races or not, you don’t want that, period. So, proud to be able to bounce back from a really rough stretch.”
The squad’s ability to recover from a poor start to the 300-lap race to become a contender for the race win was another encouraging development for Elliott.
“As bad as we were at the beginning of the race, to be able to adjust on it, take advantage of the opportunities we had to try to fix it and then to hit on it and be able to execute on it after we hit on it to be able to finish the event strong is not an easy thing to do,” he said.
“I feel like we’re as good as anybody, and I felt like (the team) really showcased their talents, not just on pit road with their pit stops being really solid but making really good adjustments and just staying on top of everything, so it was a good team win.”
Despite a strong beginning of the season for Elliott and the No. 9 squad, his first victory didn’t come until the 11th race of the year at the Dover (Del.) Motor Speedway.
During the first 16 races, 12 different victors were generated by the unpredictable outcomes brought on in part by the Next Gen car’s introduction, and no racer has accumulated sufficient wins or stage triumphs to gain an advantage in the battle for playoff points.
Due to his struggles on the racetrack since mid-May, Elliott, the winner of the 2020 season, was nevertheless able to hold onto first place in the championship rankings.
With his victory, Elliott joins fellow Hendrick driver William Byron, Ross Chastain, Joey Logano, and Denny Hamlin as the only drivers to have more than one victory this season. Nobody has more than two, either.
Elliott thinks the race for the title and the race for the regular season title remain extremely open due to these tendencies so far this season.
No one is safe
“I mean, I feel like no gap is safe. We had a pretty big one there at one point, and that can go away in a hurry,” he said. “You just have to keep bringing strong race cars to the race track. You have to keep putting yourself in position to win.
“When you’re battling up front and you have shots to win, the points thing is going to take care of itself. You might be faced with a situation here or there where you have to decide whether or not you want to get stage points or whether or not you want to try to go for the race win, and that’s just part of the world we live in now.
“I don’t think any cushion is safe in the playoff thing unless you have six or seven wins like some guys have over the last couple years. At that point, then you’re probably feeling much better about it.”
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Grand Prix, IndyCar, Nascar, NASCAR Cup Series, XFinity, Chase Elliott, Nashville Superspeedway, Hendrick Motorsports
