Chase Elliott developed his road racing prowess from an early age.
He drove Corvettes as a kid at the Bob Bondurant School of High Performance Driving in Phoenix. Moreover, he spent time with road course ringer, Ron Fellows, at the Spring Mountain Motor Resort and Country Club in Pahrump, Nevada.
Along with Boris Said, he learned some “small things” from his father — NASCAR Hall of Fame member, Bill Elliott.
“I feel like I’ve had an opportunity to be around some guys who have really good knowledge,” he said. “If you can just pick things from everybody, try to take small little tidbits there, small little tidbits there, put it into one effort I think it’s helpful.”
Not only did Chase Elliott “pick things” up, but he cemented his status as a road course racing ace with his fourth-straight NASCAR Cup Series road course victory.
After the restart with 37 laps to go in the Bank of America ROVAL 400 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Elliott methodically worked his way through the top five, be it on his own or taking advantage of someone’s misstep.
With 26 laps to go, he overtook teammate, Alex Bowman, in Turn 6 to retake the lead.
While not the final lead change, from that point on, it was his race to lose.
Elliott passed Kyle Busch and Erik Jones, both of whom were on older tires, in the final 20 laps. A late caution didn’t stop him, either.
The closest he came to blowing it was on an unscheduled pit stop for a loose wheel, as the race went back to green on Lap 55.
At that moment, he was “just focused” on moving forward.
“Felt like our car was driving well,” he said. “Certainly a setback.”
A timely caution on Lap 72 bunched the field back up and put Elliott back into contention.
“I felt like at that point we were in a position that we were kind of back to where we were or close to it with the way the strategy was working out,” he said. “I felt like we just needed to be smart, try to keep our eyes forward and make the next right call, whatever that was. Putting on tires at the caution or not.”
If that’s not enough, here’s some numbers.
With five road course race victories across three different tracks, Elliott trails only Tony Stewart (8) and Jeff Gordon (9) — both NASCAR Hall of Fame members — for most all-time road course wins in the Cup Series.
If that’s still not enough, then I can’t help you.
