Chase Elliott Is Heating Up Early

Chase Elliott Is Heating Up EarlyLogan Riely - Getty Images

Across much of his 11-year NASCAR Cup Series career, Chase Elliott has been a relatively slow starter.

In 2020, his championship season, Elliott totaled five wins but won only one of the schedule’s first 22 races.

He also had five wins in 2022 but waited until May at Dover to get his first. He won twice last season, the first of twin wins coming in June at Atlanta.

This year? Elliott is steppin’ out early. Sunday’s win at Texas was his second of the season, already matching his total victory production last season. He has four top 10s in the past five races. Entering Sunday’s race at Watkins Glen, he sits third in points.

“We’ve never won a race this early, much less to now have two this early in the year I think is really—I’m really proud of that, and I’m proud of our team for that, because anytime you can check off new boxes in this sport when you’ve been doing it for 10-plus years is cool, and it’s hard to do,” Elliott said.

Although he ran a superb race Sunday and benefitted from a high-level performance from his pit crew, Elliott emphasized that day-to-day work at the Hendrick Motorsports shop near Charlotte Motor Speedway is a big factor in his strong early-season push.

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“I don’t know that a lot of people understand just how important that is to the overall performance, but it is a huge piece,” he said. “Really fortunate and proud of everybody at Hendrick Motorsports for their continued efforts to just dig in.

“We have a gritty group back home that they just don’t take no for an answer. They’ll just work and work and work. Whatever has got to be done, get done. Friday, Saturday, midnight, 2:00, whatever. They want to win, and boss wants to win, and we’ll do whatever we got to do to try our best for that.”