Chase Elliott’s journey to the NASCAR Playoffs continues to dominate the top story lines down the Cup Series regular-season stretch — and for good reason.
The 2020 Cup champion and five-time defending most popular driver has never missed NASCAR’s postseason in each of his seven full-time seasons since making the jump to the sport’s top level in 2016. Eight races remain in the regular season, including Sunday’s feature at Elliott’s home track of Atlanta Motor Speedway (7 p.m. ET, USA Network, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App). Heading into Hampton, Georgia, Elliott sits 24th in points, 55 markers beneath the elimination line, separating the 16-driver playoff field from those who miss out.
MORE: Cup standings | See the latest Playoff Watch
This time last year, Elliott was in the midst of an extraordinary run in which he finished first or second in five consecutive races, producing three wins that helped inch him closer to the regular-season championship. And while that’s nice to reflect on, last year’s debut season of the Next Gen vehicle meant teams were still adapting to the new cars. As more data became available, Elliott’s competition closed the gap, a trend that he says continued into 2023.
“We had a good summer stretch, but a lot has changed since then too,” Elliott said during a media teleconference Thursday. “And I think a lot changed really last fall. When we started running not as good there in the fall, I think personally, the setups and just the direction that the garage area went in was a pretty large departure from what we had success with through the early stages of the season and through those summer months.
“Changes with the tire and all kinds of little things that I think added up, and we, the group and me personally as a driver, just (were) not doing very well with that. And I think some of those same struggles have rolled over into this season too.”
The genesis of Elliott’s points predicament stems, of course, from the seven races he has missed in 2023 — six due to a broken leg suffered in a March snowboarding accident and one due to suspension. But there are plenty of reasons for fans of the No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet to be optimistic as NASCAR crests into the second half of the 2023 season. In 11 starts, Elliott has scored five top-five finishes and seven top 10s, including three straight top fives and four in the last five races.
“I feel like the good news is we’ve been trending in a good direction,” Elliott said. “And I feel like the areas that I’ve struggled in, I’ve made a little progress over the last month or so. And we’ve had some solid runs at tracks that I was expecting to remind me more of our struggles last year.
“I feel like we’ve been executing races at a high level over the last month or so, which I think is a really, really good thing. And I think our team is in a really good place. We just need a little bit of pace. And I’ve been saying that over the last couple of weeks. But I think a lot of that falls on me to extract that pace to know in the early stages of the event or even in our short practice session to say, ‘hey, I need this and this to go better.’
“I think all those things are on me and to make sure that I’m giving the information that needs to be given to help lead our team in a better direction in those crucial moments.”
Up next is Atlanta, which Elliott conquered for the first time last summer in a thrilling battle against Corey LaJoie. That triumph carries significant weight for Elliott one year later and is bound to for quite a while to come.
RELATED: Weekend schedule | Preview the Atlanta action
“It was a very special race for me,” said Elliott, son of 1988 Cup champion and NASCAR Hall of Famer Bill Elliott. “I think any time any driver who over the course of their career has had the privilege of not only racing at their home track or a place that they grew up racing at in some capacity, but then to go and win? Yeah, it was a really big deal for me.
“I spent a ton of time at AMS as a kid on the quarter mile and racing down there so I thought it was super cool. That’s something that I’ll always, always remember and hope I can add to that and hope we can have a run like we had a year ago. But yeah, it was a special, special moment, one I’m very proud of. And I hope we can do it again. It was a lot of fun. It was a good time. It was really cool to check that box and to add that one to the win column.”