NASCAR News: Chase Elliott Lays Out Atlanta Strategy to Avoid Slip-Up

It has been over twenty years since NASCAR has held back-to-back races on drafting tracks. But that is about to happen again this year. After a fiery week at Daytona, the high-speed action is all set to unleash on the 1.54-mile asphalt of the reconfigured Atlanta Motor Speedway. For Chase Elliott, this track is a special one, because the AMS is quite close to his home. So does that mean Elliott has a set of special tricks up his sleeve to ace it at his home track?

When Elliott talked to the reporters in a recent interview, it didn’t seem like it. Although he did say that he didn’t want to start from the back of the pack, his goal for Sunday’s race is simple: “Try to control the things that are in your hand and outside of that, just move on.” But, he did assure that the #9 team would do their best to prepare but not worry about this race too much.

Hinting at how he was able to avoid the 23-car wreck at Daytona, Elliott said, “This will be probably very similar to Daytona. Big wrecks and trying to survive. Hopefully, we can do that here, get some points and (it would) be nice to get a win if possible.” However, it looked like Elliott was more pumped up for Las Vegas on March 4. “That’s where things are really gonna start, get an idea of where you’re at, what you need to do, how far behind you are,” he added.

Chase Elliott regrets his lane choice at Daytona

The results of last Monday’s race called for a celebration for Hendrick Motorsports. After all, William Byron broke the team’s nine-year winless streak at the famed plate track and that too, on their 40th anniversary season. However, not everyone at HMS was celebrating. Chase Elliott was taking it out on himself.

Despite winning Stage 1, Elliott seemed to be quite bummed about the choices that he had made during the race. “I made a mistake,” said the 28-year-old. “I saw Kyle (Busch) who was coming really hard on top, and I tried to pick his lane up, and he gave me a big shove. I thought I could sneak back to the middle, and the #20 (Christopher Bell) was wanting to be there too.”

An understandably bummed Chase Elliott beating himself up for what he calls a lane-choosing mistake. "I'm not sure I would've got to the front row, but certainly would've been a better finish than where we ended up. So hate that, but had a solid day otherwise, happy for (Byron)." pic.twitter.com/GIgIxZAqRC

— Kelly Price (@thekellyprice) February 20, 2024

Although the Georgian wasn’t sure if he could have come up on the front row, he knew that he could have done better than a P14 finish. However, he was happy for his teammate.