Chase Elliott feels he is in a good place to start this year as he starts third in Sunday’s Cook Out 400 at Martinsville. (Photo: Wayne Riegle | The Podium Finish)
RIDGEWAY, Va. — At any NASCAR Cup Series venue, Chase Elliott is immediately considered as a pre-race favorite. After all, he is a Cup champion, parlaying five victories, 15 top fives and 22 top 10s to win the crown in 2020.
Even as Elliott pursues his 19th career Cup win and first since the 2022 Yellawood 500 at Talladega, there was a time when the Dawsonville, Georgia, native was cutting his teeth in stock car’s premier division.
Namely, Elliott’s Cup debut was in the 2015 STP 500, the spring date at Martinsville Speedway. Qualifying 27th, Elliott placed 38th, 73 laps behind the leaders as he dealt with power steering issues.
Despite those mechanical ailments, Elliott points out how the 0.526-mile short track was tough to begin with during his early years in Cup.
“Yeah, it’s honestly it was really, really tough place for me as I first started and took me a long time to find any level of comfort at the track,” Elliott said. “But over time, we got just a little more comfort… I got more comfort driving. I felt like we were doing a good job of finding what we need to find to to make our setups go here and ultimately just gain a little experience.”
In the past five years, Elliott has finished 10th or better in seven of the past 10 races at Martinsville. Along with the 2020 Xfinity 500 victory, he has two runner up finishes, a fifth place result and three 10th place finishes.
Of Elliott’s previous 17 starts at Martinsville, the 2020 Xfinity 500 still stands out for pivotal reasons.
“That win was huge because it propelled us to having a shot the next weekend,” he recalled. “So it couldn’t have come at at a bigger moment as it pertains just to the overall all scope of what that year ended up being and its meaning to our team and all of our careers.”
Coming into Sunday’s Cook Out 400 ranked eighth in the championship standings, he has a top five and two top 10s. Slowly but surely, Elliott is showcasing the quiet but confident swagger typically seen in his No. 9 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 entry.
Before qualifying third for the 400-lap race, Elliott points out how Martinsville is not just a Sunday afternoon drive at a short track.
Chase Elliott and his ruby red No. 9 UniFirst Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 may elicit memories of Bill Elliott’s famed Coors ride of the 1980s. (Photo: Wayne Riegle | The Podium Finish)
“I hope we can continue to to put some of those strong runs together as we go on,” Elliott said. “But yeah, it’s not an easy place to get around. And certainly when you add in just the difficulties of passing and how hard these things are to drive when you get in dirty air, with these narrow entries and kind of having to be right behind somebody, it makes it really tough.”
Track position will be key on Sunday afternoon as Elliott can attest with his 2020 victory. Typically, there are two different agendas in the name of stage points and being in contention toward the latter portion of a race at the charter stock car track.
If Elliott wants a chance to win his second Martinsville grandfather clock, he knows he can count on his pit crew, time and time again, to get the job done.
“I feel like our team’s in a really good place,” he said. “Honestly and truthfully, I feel like our team’s been in a good place all year. We’re just working really well together. We’re thinking about the right things. Pit road has been great. The, you know, pit crew has been on it, and I feel like our in-race calls have been good.”
With experienced crew chief Alan Gustafson firmly into his 20th consecutive season atop a Hendrick Motorsports pit box, Elliott knows his team has elevated their craft on the track to unload fast cars each weekend.
“Our pace has been much better, so I just I feel like we’re in a fine place,” Elliott stated. “We just got to put a little more together and not get behind like we did in the middle of the race last weekend. But I feel like our pace has certainly been improved.
“And ultimately, I think we’re all all working in a really good spot right now. So I don’t see that changing. I think we all work really well together, and whatever the weekend brings, we’re going to continue to do that.”
This weekend carries incredible significance to Elliott and the Hendrick Motorsports organization. In the midst of the team’s 40th anniversary season, Martinsville is the site of the team’s first Cup win when Geoff Bodine drove the No. 5 All-Star Racing entry to a pivotal win that kept the team operating beyond the 1984 Cup season.
Beyond the successes on the track, there are emotional implications with any race weekend at Martinsville. Since Oct. 24, 2004, the date of a tragic aviation accident that claimed 10 lives, Elliott and his teammates, Kyle Larson, Alex Bowman and William Byron, commemorate the fallen by pointing to the sky after each win.
By all means, Elliott knows how much this weekend means to the Hendrick family and team.
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After a winless campaign last year, Chase Elliott likes how his No. 9 team is trending going into the Cook Out 400 at Martinsville. (Photo: Wayne Riegle | The Podium Finish)
You can just tell when something means a little extra to the boss and to Linda and it does,” Elliott said. “This is a place that has had a lot of success for the Hendrick Motorsports family and a terrible loss too and for that reason, it special in both good and horrific ways.
“And for this place to have hosted their first win and now this weekend, it’s just kind of crazy [with] the timing and the the meaning behind it all. I think there’s just a lot of emotion around it. And I know it means a lot to to Rick and Linda both. And ultimately, I think we all just want to make them proud because it’s you can tell what it does mean to them. And it’s quite a lot.”
While Elliott hopes to be the one to net Hendrick’s 29th win at Martinsville, he makes it pretty clear that he is healthy and ready to be on the offensive again.
“No, not really,” he said when considering his recovery from last year’s injuries from a snowboarding accident. “It’s been obviously a lot of racing since then, and I haven’t really thought a lot about it. But yeah, other than it’s been a year, but yeah, that’s about it.”
Editor’s Notes
Nathan Solomon contributed to this article at Martinsville Speedway in Ridgeway, Virginia.
