NASCAR road course ace hopes to eclipse his new boss
Road races in the NASCAR Cup Series are traditionally left-handed.Tossed something to lightly salt the oval and short track repeat.
After welcoming back Watkins Glen this weekend, the series’ resident road course specialist is aiming for a three-peat and one step closer to tying the record held by his new boss…,
Champions who want to leave their mark
Chase Elliott’s first half-season as the reigning NASCAR Cup champion has been strange.
Yes, he doesn’t have to worry about getting a playoff spot for the No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports machine.
Yes, he has a reasonable 12 top 10s and a couple of wins along the way, but Hendrick’s brightest star has dimmed slightly.
He’s not struggling, far from it, but the champion has been overshadowed in his new role as head of the Hendrick family.
New teammate Kyle Larson stole most of the headlines with four wins, including three rebounds.
During Larson’s stunning contests, which included a landslide victory at the Coca-Cola 600 in May, Elliott served as bridesmaid twice.
The No. 9 runner in Georgia’s latest NASCAR exit made a valiant attempt to keep Larson honest, but Nashville’s loose lug nut DSQ summed up the changes everyone was trying to catch up to.
feel good on road lessons
One area where Elliott has excelled this season, despite his relative troubles, is the road course.
After all, he is the king of modern road racing in the Cup series.
In his short career, he has made 16 starts on the left and right tracks and won seven championships.
That’s 47 percent from the field, and his scoring puts him one point behind Tony Stewart and two behind new owner Jeff Gordon with nine points.
Photo by James Gilbert/Getty Images
Victory in a soaked (and should have stopped earlier) race on the Tour of the Americas followed by Elliott-style dominance on American roads.
As NASCAR welcomes back to Watkins Glen after skipping Watkins Glen last year due to the covid-19 pandemic, the championship is looking for an equal history at the venue where it all began.
Glenn releases Elliott
By mid-2018, Elliott has now had more than two seasons and has started driving full-time in the best racing gear.
But he couldn’t break his winning duck. The monkey on his back got so big that it started hitting him with a stick.
His record at The Glen or other regular road courses at Sonoma is nothing special.
Elliott emerged from a late match against then-champion Martin Truex Jr to take his first series win on the 99th attempt.
In 2019, he again won The Glen and Charlotte ‘roval’, a new addition to the calendar.
Road Course Ace’s Secret
But despite the fact that he could be on par with Gordon and Mark Martin in New York State, he’s not taking anything for granted.
“As I’ve said many times before, past success doesn’t equal future success, and I don’t think this weekend will be any different,” he said.
“I expect everyone else will be better than the last time we were there.
“We just tried to make sure we matched it ourselves so we could do it again.
“Every time you go to the track, it’s always going to be tough.”
But how did Elliott become NASCAR’s road course expert?
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He doesn’t really know himself.
It’s not a skill he created when he was promoted, although he thinks the No. 9 team’s structure has something to do with it.
When 93-time race winner and four-time champion Gordon retired, Elliott got the iconic #24 Chevrolet.
After a quick post to #9, the team composition is still very similar.
“I don’t really feel like I’m doing anything special, more or very different in those places,” he explained.
“But again, as a company, we have a great program.
“Team #9 was now Team #24, and Jeff [Gordon] Lots of success on road courses.
“So, I feel like we’ve focused on the important things and we’ve developed a good package.
“But as I’ve always said, things are developing and changing over time, and we have to keep pushing and getting better.”
Road courses spread successfully
Elliott is certainly the right person to be a road course specialist for the Cup Series.
Like most things in the NASCAR stat-land book, the team with the most road race wins is Elliott’s Hendrick team.
It has won 23 wins, with Gordon (now Rick Hendrick’s No. 2) and Elliott accounting for 16 of them.
Photo by Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images
For the record, another great Hendrick driver, Jimmie Johnson, has only won two road races.
There’s also good news for Elliott, next week’s race is also a road race in Indianapolis — the first time the Brickyard 400 isn’t running on the oval.
More than just a road course
Calling Elliott a “road course businessman” would be dishonest, he’s only good at this type of track.
He has won at Talladega, Dover, Kansas and Charlotte Rove.
His performances in the last two games of 2020 have been amazing, proving his worth.
Elliott needed a win in the penultimate game in Martinsville to claim the title, and Elliott had a great run.
That gets him ready to head to Phoenix a week later for a well-deserved, if certainly unlikely, maiden Cup title.
Like Brad Keselowski on the short track or Denny Hamlin on the limit board, Elliott carves out for himself a niche market.
He is the man of choice for road courses.
With seven record-setting finishes on the 2021 calendar, and with NASCAR looking to keep the road course interesting, Elliott is in a good position.
It doesn’t take long for him to pass Gordon’s 9, so the only question is, how high can he set the bar?
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Jack usually writes or reads anything related to motorsport – from Formula 1 to NASCAR to British truck racing. His work as a motorsport reporter has been published in prestigious outlets such as Autosport, Motorsport.com and Motorsport News. In addition to racing, he is an avid amateur astronomer, podcast listener, and enjoys walks in the park with his three dogs.
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