Chase Elliott has done nothing but impress NASCAR fans in his first full season at the helm of the No. 24 in the Sprint Cup Series.
From leading laps in the Daytona 500 to making it to the second round of the Chase, Elliott has been superb. However, after trouble at Kansas, Elliott might find himself out of the playoffs.
Chase Elliott: Bad Luck Could Push Him Out of the Chase
The rookie had just taken the lead in Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400 before cycling in on his green flag pit stop strategy. He exited the pits and regained the lead fairly quickly. It looked like he would be out front for a while.
However, Elliott would be coming back down pit road just one lap after he left. He had a tire rub on his left, rear tire which caused him to detour from the track not once, but twice on the day.
“We really don’t know,” Elliott said. “I don’t know if we got the left rear getting up on the race track, or something got into the fender and cut it down. I don’t know what to do man.”
Elliott finished in 31st, two spots better than his 33rd place finish in the 1st race of the round. “We were trying as hard as we can,” Elliott said. “We had such a good car today again, and I don’t know what to do. Just keep after it and try to move on.”
This has seemed to happen a lot with the 24 team in 2016. They have lead the laps in 12 races and spent a lot of time out front, however they have not been able to seal the deal on a win.
Thankfully for the team, Talladega is next up on the schedule, and that race is always a wildcard.
“[We’’ll] will go there, and race our hearts out and try to win I guess,” Elliott said. “That’s about all we can do I guess. We have something to be proud of in the way we have been running. There are just some things we can’t control.”
In his first time at Talladega in a cup car, Elliott lead 27 laps and finished fifth, however to keep his season alive, he’ll need to fight his way into Victory Lane.
