A win usually solves a lot of problems for NASCAR drivers and teams, but it looks like Chase Elliott’s return to Victory Lane means just as much, if not more, to him.
When performance dips or isn’t up to par, Cup Series teams tend to try to fix the problem at some point, and that often includes making personnel changes.
When Elliott, the sport’s most popular driver, ended his 42-game winning streak Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway, he started the No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports race as a late 2022 season drought began. We deployed a lot of our team to stop it. Since then, Elliott’s performance hasn’t suddenly deteriorated, but the team has suffered two major setbacks. I lost my driver twice. He missed races once due to a foot injury and once due to a NASCAR suspension. Upon his return, the once robotically stable No. 9 team looked a little more haphazard.
During the winless period, Elliott struggled to win at times, and there were times when it looked like the team wasn’t on the same level as its biggest rival or Hendrick’s teammates. “I think he’s done really well. I think he gets stuck in little holes sometimes. ‘You just have to fight, you know?'” said Elliott’s crew chief Alan Gustafson. “That’s the biggest thing I’m most proud of him and the team just keeps fighting through it and making it happen.” “It’s so cliché and cheesy, but you never give up. You learn that if you don’t give up, things will get better.”
For Elliott, this seemed especially true this season before the race in Texas. Hendrick Motorsports as an organization has had a particularly strong start to the year, and while still without a win, Elliott has posted three top-10 finishes in the last four races, including back-to-back top-five finishes at Richmond and Martinsville. There is. In fact, Elliott ran a season-best 64 laps at Martinsville and finished third, chasing the win until the end of the race. It looked like everything he and his team needed to compete for wins on a regular basis was coming together.
Elliott, 28, said: “From a competitive standpoint, I think overall we were better than our competitors for most of the season, but we didn’t always have great positions or great results.” Told.
“You have to be in the middle of everything. You have to be at the front to get things going the way you want them to go. We were close to doing that. We always want to be better. I think there is room for improvement. I’m proud of how everything worked out. “It’s a lot more fun when you’re fighting for the win and on the front lines, whether things are going your way or not. It’s fun just hitting.”
But perhaps it will be even more fun to fight through difficult times as a team and at the same time rediscover our usual form of success. “I was really proud of how our group continued to stick together because a lot of you have been in this sport for a long time and when you had a few bad years, when things weren’t going well, , jump ship and outsmart each other,” Elliott said. “I think winning is great and everything is great, but honestly I’m most proud of the journey and the group of people that got to the top together. We made each other better. .
“They push me to be a better driver and a better person.”
Gustafson said Elliott has had so much success at such a young age, including winning championships, that it’s easy to forget that he’s still learning and growing. “He’s a little boy. You just have to learn to get through it,” Gustafsson said. “William Byron, I love him and Rudy (Fugl, Byron’s crew chief), but they’re not always on top, right? That’s not going to happen. Everybody goes through ups and downs. “(Martin) Truex Jr., Denny (Hamlin), Kyle (Larson), Kyle Busch, whoever you want to call successful, everyone has their ups and downs. I think the important thing is to have the strength to go through it and endure, and he did that. ”
