{"id":21108,"date":"2018-08-10T13:25:15","date_gmt":"2018-08-10T18:25:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=21108"},"modified":"2018-08-11T17:13:13","modified_gmt":"2018-08-11T22:13:13","slug":"breakthrough-win-could-jumpstart-chase-elliotts-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2018\/08\/10\/breakthrough-win-could-jumpstart-chase-elliotts-season\/","title":{"rendered":"Breakthrough win could jumpstart Chase Elliott’s season"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service<\/em><\/p>\n

Chase Elliott<\/strong> showed up for his Friday morning news conference at Michigan International Speedway<\/strong> still smiling. Five days after earning his first career Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series<\/a> win, who could blame him?<\/p>\n

\"\"

Chase Elliott, driver of the #9 SunEnergy1 Chevrolet, leads a pack of cars during the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series GoBowling at The Glen at Watkins Glen International on August 5, 2018 in Watkins Glen, New York. (Photo by Chris Trotman\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

The best part for the quiet-natured 22-year old might be that he\u2019s absolutely a favorite to win again. This weekend.<\/p>\n

The two-mile super-fast Michigan oval \u2013 where the series races Sunday in the Consumers Energy 400 (2:30 ET, NBCSN, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) \u2013 has long been one of Elliott\u2019s finest tracks.<\/p>\n

He has, by far, the best driver rating here and has never finished outside the top 10 in five starts. He was – either remarkably or painstakingly, depending on how you look at it  – runner-up in his first three races at the track. His ninth-place finish in June\u2019s rain-shortened race in the No. 9 Chevrolet is his \u201cworst\u201d showing. For it all, his average finish is an amazing 4.6.<\/p>\n

Not only do Elliott\u2019s stats earn him that good Michigan vibe, but his victory last weekend was so popular, his former Hendrick Motorsports teammate – now a NBC television analyst – Dale Earnhardt Jr. started referring to Elliott as \u201cElvis.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he needs to retire from giving nicknames,\u2019\u2019 Elliott said laughing. \u201cFor some reason he has always thought I look like Elvis and I really don\u2019t know why.  I know he has a little bit of an obsession with Elvis. He has an Elvis room in his house, which is kind of weird.<\/p>\nhttp:\/\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/Michigan2_MENCS_Elliott_081018.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been in that room before and you wake up and there is this Elvis man staring at you.  I don\u2019t know if he just has a thing for Elvis or what.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Whatever Earnhardt\u2019s motivation in the name, Elliott is certainly NASCAR\u2019s current version of a beloved icon. His victory on the historic Watkins Glen road course last weekend formally turned positive potential into great result.<\/p>\n

The former Xfinity Series champion had eight runner-up showings and eight third-place showings in his three-year fulltime Cup career prior to last weekend, and getting that first victory was a long time coming for him, and for his H-U-G-E  fandom.<\/p>\n

But Elliott never truly doubted it would come. The circumstances just hadn\u2019t been right yet, he conceded.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs you move forward they don\u2019t get any easier,\u2019\u2019 he said. \u201cI definitely feel a lot of relief to have finally won a race after being so close so many times. I certainly feel like I have some more confidence that I haven\u2019t had leading into a race weekend, which is nice, but that doesn\u2019t mean things are going to get any easier, but I think that just a lot of relief for myself and my team.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m excited to see where we go moving forward whether it gets better or worse I don\u2019t know, but I feel good about it and that is all that matters.\u201d<\/p>\n

And so do plenty of others. His father, NASCAR Hall of Famer Bill Elliott was spotting for him on the Glen\u2019s famous road course and able to join him in a hugely celebratory victory lane. Bill Elliott was the sport\u2019s former multi-season Most Popular Driver \u2013 the precursor to Earnhardt\u2019s 15-year run \u2013 and it felt too many people, like another formal passing of the throne, in light of Earnhardt\u2019s retirement from fulltime Cup competition in 2017.<\/p>\n

Yet even in the midst of Elliott\u2019s career-defining day, it was also more simply, a proud dad and son moment.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been 54 years since a Cup driver (Billy Wade) scored his first and second wins in consecutive races. NASCAR Hall of Famer Ned Jarrett did so as well, in 1959. And considering Elliott\u2019s past work at Michigan, there\u2019s probably no venue on the schedule with better odds for him to make that happen.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope so,\u2019\u2019 Elliott said, allowing a grin. \u201cThis has been a pretty good track for us in general.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not to say this weekend will go good. I feel like we were better here my first two years than we were in the spring race this year, unfortunately. So, yeah, I don\u2019t know. I hope this weekend goes good and I think this weekend will be kind of a gauge of where we stack-up for some of these race tracks that are coming up at Indy and not so much Darlington, but here and Indy and Vegas and some of the 1.5-mile and 2-milers coming up. We didn\u2019t stack up very well here in the spring race.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019ve gotten a little better at these style tracks since then, so hopefully.  We\u2019ll see.\u201d<\/p>\n

And all of NASCAR will be looking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service Chase Elliott showed up for his Friday morning news conference at Michigan International Speedway still smiling. Five days after earning his first career Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series win, who could blame him? The best part for the quiet-natured 22-year old might be that he\u2019s absolutely a favorite to win […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":676,"featured_media":21025,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[500,219,16],"class_list":["post-21108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-chase-elliott","tag-michigan-international-speedway","tag-nascar"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/WGI_MENCS_Elliott_Pack_080518.jpg?fit=3457%2C2304","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-5us","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/676"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21108"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21108\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21114,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21108\/revisions\/21114"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}