Chase Elliott’s win in Texas on Sunday has taken a big worry off his mind. He effectively destroyed the 42-race winless streak that was casting a black blot on his resume and fixed his spot in the 2024 Cup Series playoffs. Now that the biggest mental hurdle is out of the way, what’s next for him?
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Speaking on SpeedFreaks after his recent victory, he detailed his approach for the rest of the season. He assured that he will be trying to win more races throughout the year and stack up playoff points. The reason behind wanting to secure playoff points is a lesson that he learned in the 2022 season.
“Any playoff points that you can get and stack up can certainly help propel you through the playoffs,” he said. “We saw that in 2022. We had quite a number stacked up in the bank and that was why we got to Phoenix. We had run so bad throughout the course of those playoffs that without our 35 or 40 points that came from wins that we had done early in the season, we would have never made it.”
9 races down in the 36 race season, there are still plenty of opportunities for Elliott to revisit victory lane. The most immediate of them will be at the Talladega Superspeedway this coming weekend. He won on the track in 2022 and finished in 7th place last October. He will hope to keep the engine running with back-to-back victories.
How playoff points helped Chase Elliott reach Pheonix in 2022
The debut year of the NASCAR Next Gen car saw Elliott collect 4 scattered victories across the regular season. He ended up being the regular season champion and went into the postseason riding high on momentum. Once in the playoffs, he stumbled in the opening race at Darlington and crashed, leading to a last-placed finish.
A string of mediocre performances continued threatening his chances of advancing to further rounds. Thanks to the 40 playoff points that he’d secured in the regular season, he was able to do so. The points helped him move through each of the rounds before reaching the finale at Phoenix with a win at Talladega and a 10th placed finish at Martinsville.
