Elliott would love to find a way to be different at Richmond
RICHMOND, VA. >> Like many drivers in NASCAR’s top series, Chase Elliott had a hard time figuring out the best way to navigate the layout at Richmond Raceway when he first raced on the track.
Some think the 0.75-mile, Dshaped oval drives like a mini superspeedway, and others enjoy the short-track feel it provides as a track shorter than a mile.
Elliott still isn’t sure what to make of the track that appears twice on the schedule in NASCAR’s premier series.
“The driving at Richmond is honestly very straight forward,” the reigning series champion said this week. “I think that’s what makes Richmond really hard is because it’s just not a super challenging place, I don’t think, for the drivers to run the proper line.
“But what makes it really hard there is to just be different. And everyone is doing the exact same thing . ... You’re riding that really razor-thin edge much like you do at Martinsville, but it’s definitely a challenge. And I think the reason it’s a challenge is that everyone is just doing the same thing.”
Elliott finished fifth at Richmond last fall in the series’ only visit because of the pandemic, but was 15th and 13th in two starts in the 2019 season.
As the series wraps up a threerace stretch of short tracks, El