Elliott looks to build off win
Now it’s clear that Chase Elliott can win a race.
Can he win a championship? During all the hand-wringing over Elliott’s struggles to win for the first time and his string of eight runner-up finishes without a victory, his 2017 run in the playoffs sometimes was forgotten. He almost made the Final Four last season, barely missing a chance to race for the title at Homestead-Miami Speedway despite his winless status.
After finally wiping that zero from racing’s most important column with a thrilling win over Martin Truex Jr. last Sunday at Watkins Glen International, Elliott’s focus now is improving his week-to-week performance as the playoffs approach. The playoff opener is scheduled for Sept. 16 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Next up is Sunday’s Consumers Energy 400 (2:30 p.m. ET, NBCSN) at Michigan International Speedway, where Elliott has five top-10 finishes in five races. Three of his runner-up finishes were logged at MIS.
The “almost” tag stuck to Elliott like industrial glue.
“I definitely think there were some opportunities to win that I didn’t capitalize on,” he said. “But looking at the way we ran last fall, I was pretty confident in the fact that if we had things going the right direction that we could run with those guys. In my showed that pretty well.
“I don’t think anybody really expected us to go and battle as far as we did into the Chase and to be pretty dang close to making it to the Final Four if we had been able to finish one off there (at Phoenix in the season’s next-to-last race, where he finished third). All of that doesn’t really matter, but it definitely motivates you to want to do better and come back stronger when you do have those rough days.”
Elliott’s journey this season has been colored by the continuing struggle of Chevrolet teams to adapt to the Camaro.
“I think we’ve been getting better for whatever reason,” Elliott said. “I think we still have room for improvement. I’m not at all saying that we’re out of the woods, but I think that the past few weeks we’ve been getting a little bit of momentum.” opinion, we