Chase Elliott is greedy: he wants it all. The Hendrick Motorsports driver wants to finish the 26-race regular season on top of the standings, which would give him an additional 15 bonus points for the start of the 10-race playoffs. And then, use those bonus points as a kickoff toward winning what he hopes will be his second Cup championship.
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“They’d be huge for sure,” Elliott said of potentially earning the bonus points. “I’ve been on both sides of the coin there. We’ve been (in) years where we have not had many playoff points and I’ve had a couple years where we’ve had a bunch.
“I promise, it is a lot easier when you have a lot in the bank. That’s a much better way to go about it. The way the system is, with so many things kind of being out of your control, it’s nice to have something to fall back on. So of course, yeah, we want it all.”
Elliott heads into this Sunday’s race in Iowa with a slim four-point lead over teammate William Byron, who was the previous points leader. Another Hendrick Motorsports teammate, Kyle Larson, is third in the standings, 15 points behind Elliott.
Fourth is Joe Gibbs Racing’s Denny Hamlin, who is 20 points behind Elliott. Byron, Larson and Hamlin are the only drivers within one race’s worth of points behind Elliott. Another JGR driver, Christopher Bell, is in fifth place, 62 points behind Elliott.
What is ironic about Elliott’s hope to win the regular season championship, and then go on to win the 10-race playoffs, is that he’s advocated for the current format to be eliminated.
Elliott has a different points system in mind
Instead, Elliott proposes that NASCAR return to the old points system that was in effect for well over 30 years, mainly during the years when the sport was sponsored by Winston cigarettes, including the time his father Bill was an active driver.
The old points system did not have a playoff system like the current one has, there was no “Championship 4” winner-take-all playoff in the season finale, and the eventual champion was the driver who amassed the most points during the course of the season.
