Elliott still seeks 1st win on home track
Chase Elliott has accomplished so much in his young racing career.
A NASCAR championship. Most popular driver awards. Fifteen Cup victories at all types of tracks. But one thing is missing. A home win.
The 26-year-old Dawsonville, Georgia, native returns to Atlanta Motor Speedway on Sunday still looking to take the checkered flag at the place where his father Bill established the family’s fame and young Chase learned the ropes.
“It’s always nice to race close to home,” Elliott said. “It’s nice to go home at night, sleep in my own bed.”
Even better than a restful night would be the chance to celebrate in victory lane in front of a home-state crowd.
“I would love to win here,” Elliott said. “It would be very meaningful to be able to check that box.”
The 2020 series champion already has a pair of wins this season and leads the point standings heading into the second race of the season on Atlanta’s 1.54-mile trioval.
In a wild year that produced 13 different winners over the first half of the 36-race marathon, and has seemingly made it impossible to sustain any level of success, Elliott has been solid just about every time he starts the engine.
In addition to wins at Dover and Nashville, he was runner-up to Tyler Reddick last week at
Road America to go along with nine other top-10 finishes.
“Chase Elliott has been that consistent rock,”
Kurt Busch said Saturday,
when heavy storms washed out qualifying for the Quaker State 400. “He’s that guy who might’ve had trouble early in the race and you’re like, ‘Where did he come from? He’s fourth.’ He’s doing the job that champions do, and he’s doing it better than other champions right now.”
But Atlanta Motor Speedway has always been a bit of a conundrum for Elliott, whose father won five times at the track — albeit in an era before several renovations produced an entirely different layout.
Chase has come up short in eight Cup races at the high-speed track, managing just a single top-five showing. He’s 0-for-12 if you throw in his Xfinity and Truck series appearances.
FORMULA ONE
Max Verstappen was untroubled as he won the sprint race from pole at the Austrian Grand Prix at Spielberg, Austria, his effort made easier by Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz Jr. scrapping each other behind him for one meager point.
They almost collided, with tensions appearing to carry over from last Sunday’s British GP where Leclerc was unhappy with team decisions and Sainz won.
The positions from the sprint set the grid for Sunday’s grand prix, so Verstappen starts at the front as he aims for a fifth win at his Formula One team’s home track in Spielberg.
Verstappen improved to 189 points in the overall standings and leads his Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez by 38 points and Leclerc by 44.