JOLIET, Ill. – Chase Elliott has performed well at Chicagoland Speedway during the course of his young NASCAR career and he looks to continue that trend in Sunday’s Overton’s 400.
The Hendrick Motorsports driver has made two career Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series starts at the 1.5-mile track with finishes of third and second. As Elliott continues his pursuit of career win number one he’s hoping it comes in Sunday’s Overton’s 400.
Although Elliott has had two good finishes in his opening pair of Cup races at Chicagoland, he understands there were a number of different things that came together for the finish.
“Well, the past two races here at Chicago have been really good for us,” Elliott said Friday at Chicagoland Speedway. “I think that a lot of it is kind of circumstantial. We had some great things going on.
“I don’t think that it means I’m special at this track more than anywhere else, I just think that was the case. So, I feel as if we have certainly a good baseline from a general set-up perspective, so I think that is encouraging and we have some upgrades coming for this race this weekend. We had a week off from our intermediate program to improve and make our cars better, so hopefully that shows up. If it does, great, and if it doesn’t then we will go back to work.”
Chicagoland: Driver Averages | Laps Led Leaders
While there are at times pressure on Elliott to finally put a win on the board and break the goose egg he has for his Cup career, he remains steadfast in not adding any additional stress to his pursuit of Victory Lane. He believes he is still learning to be competitive at NASCAR’s top level.
“I feel like in my career thus far, I’ve had some portions of seasons that were really good car wise and we were really strong, had some great things going for us, things that if I knew then what I know now I would love another shot at them,” Elliott said.
“That is the biggest thing is you just have to kind of pick your battles and you know for us, there have been races to this point throughout the year that we haven’t been the fastest car at the end of practice or at the end of qualifying and you have to really just kind of sit back and make the most of what you have.”
Adding to Elliott’s challenges is the struggle by the Chevrolet camp in the transition to the Camaro ZL1 body style. But as the season rolls on and the series returns to several tracks on the schedule, Elliott remains confident improvement will continue.
“Like I said a few weeks ago, there are some things going on amongst our group that is really good and that you have to have to go and compete for race wins and I think we are doing some of that,” he said. “Not everything, but we are doing some of the things along the way that it takes. So, put all the pieces together and hopefully it will be there.”
