“This Stuff’s Tough”: Chase Elliott Swallows Bitter Pill of Reality Post Disastrous NASCAR Season

Sure, Chase Elliott had arguably the worst season of his NASCAR Cup career in 2023. He missed out on several races because of an injury. He was handed a one-race suspension. He failed to make the playoffs. He went a whole year without winning a single race. It was pretty bad.

However, Elliott wasn’t surprised by the way things went, or for the lack of better words, his failure. In fact, he had a pretty straightforward, pretty honest, and in some ways, pretty self-aware way of looking at things.

“No,” Elliott recently said as per Racer, when asked if he was surprised by his performances in 2023. “This stuff’s tough, and if you’re not on your game, you’re not going to win. We haven’t been on our game.”

Elliott insisted that the way 2023 went, isn’t how he wants it to be, that whatever part of the scale he is measured on, that doesn’t matter to him. What matters to him is something pretty simple. “I want to be better and I think, as I’ve expressed, I feel like I have a really, really strong team, and the guys are working hard every week to try to give me the things that I want and need, and that’s really all you can ask for,” he said.

“I just want to continue on that path and continue to work hard like we have been, and I think the hard work and resilience of not quitting and not giving up will eventually get us to where we need to go.”

Chase Elliott has already started fixing problems and issues in prep for 2024

There’s no denying that a competitor such as Chase Elliott would give his all to bounce back in the coming season, to shut off his doubters, and reward his fans’ faith and support for him. And that work has already started for the Hendrick Motorsports driver.

He recently updated his fans on a medical procedure he underwent, which is surely one of the steps in fixing the woes that plagued him in the recently concluded season.

Looking forward to 2024, one can expect Chase Elliott and the #9 team to fight back right out of the gates. Of course, the NASCAR season is a long one and still a long way ahead and anything can happen.

But one can’t deny that Elliott will be more than ready to get back to his winning ways in 2024.