Chase Elliott qualified 19th for Sunday’s Ambetter Health 400 at Atlanta Motor Speedway on Saturday, February 22, 2025. (Photo: Sydney Redden | The Podium Finish)
HAMPTON, Ga. – It is impossible to visit Atlanta Motor Speedway without thinking about Georgia’s own Elliott family.
While “Awesome Bill from Dawsonville” Elliott has won a whopping six times at the 1.5-mile track, NASCAR’s seven-time Most Popular Driver Chase Elliott has one win in the bank and the third-best average finish of 8.6 since the track was reconfigured in 2021.
“I always look forward to racing there. I’m really happy that we have two dates at Atlanta,” Elliott said to Atlanta Motor Speedway’s media team. “I think that it’s a track that made a large investment to improve their product and I think that they have successfully created a lot of chatter down there around the racetrack and around the events.”
Following a night of bad luck at Sunday’s rain-delayed and tumultuous Daytona 500, Elliott started off the 2025 season with a 15th place finish, placing him 10th in the Cup Series points standings.
“Honestly, I wouldn’t do anything different than we did last weekend,” Elliott said regarding moving past the disappointing result last weekend. “Was I disappointed in the result? Absolutely. You know, certainly felt like we were better than that. But when I just look at the week of work that we put in and the preparation that went in — we had probably our best car in the Next Gen era down there for a DAYTONA 500, so I thought that was great.”
However, everyone knows that it is nice to enjoy being home after a disappointing moment.
Atlanta has always sat close to Elliott’s heart. He had many childhood memories there, not to mention that he still resides in Dawsonville, which is less than two hours away.
“I spent a good chunk of my childhood summers down there racing on Thursday nights. Racing Bandoleros and Legend cars was a lot of fun. At that point in time, you’re running around there on the quarter-mile hoping one day you have a chance to race on ‘the big track’.
“I think a combination of those memories and those summer nights, along with being able to capture a Cup Series win there, make it pretty memorable for me. Hopefully, we can add to that.”
Chase Elliott during qualifying for the Ambetter Health 400 at Atlanta Motor Speedway on Saturday, February 22, 2025. (Photo: Hayden Hutchison | The Podium Finish)
Regardless of the disheartening result at Daytona, Elliott started the year off strong with a dominant win in the Cook Out Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium. Even though that was not a points-paying race, the momentum from that victory can still carry over to Atlanta. A win this weekend would secure Elliott a spot in the playoffs and lift a huge weight off of the team’s shoulders.
His one and only Cup Series championship came in 2020 and he was the regular series champion in 2022. However, he suffered through an almost year-long 42-race winless streak between 2023 and 2024, making his most recent points-paying win at Texas Motor Speedway last year the boost that the No. 9 team needed.
Elliott’s most recent effort at Atlanta in the fall kicked off his journey towards the 2024 Cup Series championship with an eighth place finish. As the first playoff race out of 10, the solid result served as the catalyst for Elliott’s seventh place points finish for 2024.
This weekend, Elliott will take to the track to improve upon last year’s performance, rolling off 19th for the Ambetter Health 400.
