Bob Pockrass
FOX Motorsports Insider
FORT WORTH, Texas — Chase Elliott returned to the track where he earned his last NASCAR Cup Series points-race victory. And he didn’t know how to feel.
He could have felt excited because he was returning to the Texas Motor Speedway track where he last earned a win (not including the preseason exhibition Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium). Or he could have returned with a little bit of frustration, considering it has been more than a full year (37 races) since his last triumph.
“Obviously, I would have loved to have had more points wins,” Elliott said. “Certainly the Clash was a great weekend for us. And while it wasn’t a points win — and I’m very much aware of that — it wasn’t like nobody was trying.
“For us, that was a great way to start the season, and we just have to keep building on it.”
Chase Elliott’s pre-race interview from Texas Motor Speedway
Elliott said he takes things week to week and believes the lessons learned in recent races are much more pertinent than what they might have learned a year ago at Texas.
He qualified 29th and ended up 16th at Texas, and it was a frustrating day. He took two tires for track position after the second stage, but he wasn’t able to maintain a top-10 pace and then battled a vibration.
But he remains fourth in the Cup standings, well above the current playoff cut line. In 11 races, Elliott has three top fives, six top 10s and no finishes worse than 20th.
So it’s not like the Hendrick driver has had a bad season. Far from it. But he also has not won a stage this year, let alone a race.
“No different than anyone else on our team. We want more,” Elliott said prior to the Texas race. “We’re capable of more, and we just have high expectations of ourselves and we know what we’re capable of.
“That’s where we are proud of those good runs that we’ve had. But we know that there’s more in the tank and that we can extract more out of our team and race results and lead some more laps and get ourselves in good position.”
Elliott has led laps in just three races this year. He led two laps at Daytona, 42 laps at Martinsville and one lap at Talladega. He has not finished better than fourth. He has finished in the top 10 in nine of the 22 stages this year but has finished in the top four in stages just four times.
“We’ve had a couple opportunities at [wins and stage wins] this year, but certainly not the amount of opportunities that I think we need to have, or that we should have, or that we should give ourselves,” Elliott said.
“The season is still very early. … I’ve seen enough high spots to kind of give me hope.”
NASCAR Cup Series: Würth 400 presented by LIQUI MOLY Highlights
The fourth-place finish at Circuit of the Americas and the other fourth-place finish at Martinsville were among those that give him hope. He has been in the mix at all the superspeedways and entered Texas coming off a fifth-place finish at Talladega.
“There’s been enough high spots in there for me to have confidence in some of the things that we’re doing and keep going to work each week,” Elliott said.
So what’s the answer?
For Elliott, he said he needs to keep faith in their preparation and continue preparing like they know they should.
“All you can do when you’re in this fight is just keep showing up … continue to put the right amount of effort throughout the weekend to make sure you’re prepared to show up on any given weekend and put together a solid day,” Elliott said.
“But it’s all got to go together. It all has to come together at the right time. I have to do my job. We’ve got to call good races on the box. We have to have good pit stops. It’s all there. Obviously, we want more and we expect more.”
Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR and INDYCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass.
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