2020 NASCAR Cup Series champion Chase Elliott is one driver who has been missing from the postseason picture for the past couple of seasons. The #9 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 driver has been in a rebuilding phase of sorts for his career, which took a sideways step after his infamous snowboarding accident last year, sidelining him from the competitions as well as the Playoffs until now.
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Despite being sidelined from the business end of the year, Elliott’s performances have not been as impressive as they were with the previous generation cup car. The Dawsonville, Georgia native also accepted his extended coming to terms with the Next Gen car.
However, the fruits of Elliott’s labor finally seem to be showing as the #9 crew are destined to challenge during this year’s postseason after their breakthrough win at Texas Motor Speedway earlier in the year.
Does playoff media day have lights @bobpockrass? pic.twitter.com/yy5NYUnZWj
— Chase Elliott (@chaseelliott) September 4, 2024
Coming into the Round of 16, eighteen rounds have passed since the Hendrick Motorsport star’s trip to victory lane. The past few weeks with a P15 finish at Michigan and a DNF at Daytona leave Elliott with much-needed momentum to regain.
“The last few weeks have definitely not been good which is a terrible time to have bad runs. The Daytona thing. Such a bummer to have that happen when it did. No one was even pushing at that time and we crashed. We were really due for a crash,” Elliott told SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
The regular season finale at Darlington Raceway saw Elliott finish the 500-mile-long race in P11. The former Cup champion, however, was not content with the same and touched on how the general pace from himself and his crew has been over the past few weekends.
Despite the dismal showing, Elliott looked optimistic about his challenge in the playoffs this year, without paying much heed to his performances from the past few weeks.
“Michigan I really felt our finish was not an indication of how we ran. Darlington was definitely an indication of how we ran. We were really bad Sunday night. I can’t say that I’ve been super discouraged by any of the last three weeks, certainly disappointed with Darlington. Hopefully, we don’t have any more of that.”
A home track win to start the #NASCARPlayoffs would have that si-reen sounding for days.@chaseelliott | @ATLMotorSpdwy pic.twitter.com/nZbB7y8KbC
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) September 5, 2024
What seemed like a confident driver despite the obvious struggles of the past three weeks for the #9 crew, Chase Elliott seems to be holding his head high as the sport heads to Atlanta Motor Speedway for the first event of the Round of 16 this weekend.
The 2024 Quaker State 400 is one of three races in this round that are guaranteed to shake up the standings owing to the vastly different styles of tracks coming up, coupled with the generally unpredictable nature of Atlanta as a Superspeedway-esque race.
The event goes live on Sunday, September 8, 2024, at 3:00 pm ET.
