“What happened to the day when he (Chase Elliott) could win on every track?” As hard-hitting as it may sound, Kyle Petty is asking this very question to the driver of the No.9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, Chase Elliott.
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The 2020 NASCAR Cup Series champion was once regarded as the best the sport has to offer, with his expertise on road-course races as well as his ability to adapt and win on other types of tracks that NASCAR has to offer. However, since the Next Gen car was introduced in 2022, Elliott has somewhat been lost in the grand scheme of things.
Fourteen races in, Elliott remains winless despite consistently scoring stage points and solid finishes. While P5 in the regular season standings might paint a rosy picture, Kyle Petty does not necessarily align with that train of thought.
Petty compared Elliott’s performance to his teammates, namely Kyle Larson and William Byron, who seemed to be the leading duo for HMS last year, and this season as well. He questioned, “Byron is putting that thing in the top five every single week, leading laps, dominating races.
“And we look at the #5 (Larson) car yesterday (Nashville), horrendous performance in the first segment, was within 15-20 feet of getting lapped, and they work, and he gets a top 10 out of it. The whole time he’s doing this, the #9 car is hovering around 17th, 18th, 19th.”
Petty terms Elliott the ‘perennial pretender’
Petty also touched on how HMS, as an organization, is capable of providing its drivers with race-winning cars. However, given the performance displayed by Elliott and Alex Bowman so far, Petty is not putting his money on either to make a deep run in the playoffs this year, at least not yet.
Petty even went as far as to question one of GoPRNLive co-hosts’ label for Elliott. While the No. 9 was the ‘perennial contender’ for a few, Petty had other ideas. “I took a double-take because I thought you said a perennial pretender.”
Roasting Cup Series drivers aside, Petty does put forward a valid point. Ever since the sport’s introduction to the seventh generation ‘Next Gen’ car, and Elliott’s infamous ski accident, the former champion of the sport has not looked the same.
Elliott himself, on the other hand, while acknowledging the importance of winning in the regular season, did not lay all his eggs in the ‘win-and-you’re-in’ basket. “I want to be in the group of people of how many playoff points do you have, not just barely getting in,” the 29-year-old said. Whether that train of thought will work out for him and his No. 9 crew in 2025 remains to be seen.
