With a fifth-place run at Saturday’s Duck Commander 500 at Texas Motor Speedway, Chase Elliott, and his No. 24 crew have proved that the 2016 Rookie of the Year competition is in their favor. Not only was it his first career top-five, it was also his fourth top-10 in seven races. With that, he holds a spot safely in 14th, well within the confines of the 16-car Chase for the Cup. In comparison, Elliott’s nearest rookie competition, Ryan Blaney, has only two top-10s this season and sits 20th in points.
Although his season has been marred with crashes at Daytona (where he started on the pole) and Las Vegas, Elliott has proven to be consistent and consistently fast. He can usually be found running in the top-10, regularly fighting for the fifth-through-eighth positions, which is stellar for a rookie. Although he’s not setting the track on fire like his predecessor Jeff Gordon, he’s still answering a lot of unknowns about whether or not he’s a good choice for that seat.
At the time, he still has a few weaknesses to overcome; he’s a rookie, so it’s expected. But when it comes to the 1.5-mile tracks and the superspeedways, Elliott has shown that he is up to the task, as he is constantly in position to do well in the No. 24. Take Texas, for instance. Late in the going it was looking like the No. 24 could have had something for the leaders. Two tires didn’t exactly work out well for him, and a four-tire pit stop set him back a bit, but to come back to a fifth-place finish is the sort of performance that’s going to take that team to Victory Lane this season.
Elliott said of his Texas performance, “I definitely think it was a solid night. It’s not a perfect night. We would love to turn all four cars in the top-10 to all four cars in the top-five and I think that’s a goal we have to shoot for. I think we have a team and people that are capable of doing that so we want to keep working at it. I think as I said before, we’re, for us, we’re excited to run in the top-five. We’re also not content, and we want to be contenders and running fifth isn’t a contender. You’ve got to be up a little higher. That’s our goal, and we’ll keep working at it.”
Surely the crew will be working on that and will be bringing home excellent results. With the way they’re performing, it’s perfectly reasonable to see them winning a race and making the Chase this season and ultimately winning the Rookie of the Year award at season’s end. It’s plausible, it’s probable, and with Alan Gustafson calling the shots on the pit box it’s all but a certainty this season.
