NASCAR CUP SERIES
TALLADEGA SUPERSPEEDWAY
ROUND OF 12: RACE TWO
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER QUOTES
OCTOBER 5, 2024
CHASE ELLIOTT, NO. 9 KELLEY BLUE BOOK CAMARO ZL1, met with the media in advance of the NASCAR Cup Series qualifying session at Talladega Superspeedway.
Media Availability Quotes:
I KNOW YOU CONSIDER ATLANTA MOTOR SPEEDWAY AS YOUR HOMETRACK, BUT IT’S JUST ABOUT EQUAL DISTANCE HERE TO TALLADEGA SUPERSPEEDWAY. WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO COME TO THIS TRACK WITH THE HISTORY YOUR FAMILY HAS HERE?
“Yeah, this track has always kind of been, to me, a second home track in a lot of ways.. because of the distance and I feel like the fans here have always been really good to us and good to me. I’ve always recognized that and appreciated that, and it’s one of the reasons why I always look forward to coming here. I’ve always enjoyed coming over here. It’s close to home, like you said. We’ve had a couple of good days, so that’s good, and we’ll try to have another good one on Sunday.”
WITH THE EXTENSION ON THE ROOF RAIL ON THE RIGHT SIDE AND THE ROCKER PANEL, DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA IF IT’S GOING TO DO ANYTHING?
“I don’t. I don’t know any more than you guys do, from that standpoint. I think it’s certainly an effort to try and keep the cars on the ground, as we’re all aware of. I also know it’s got to be extremely difficult to test those things; put cars in the same circumstances that they’re going to see during a crash. I think that’s almost impossible to simulate every little detail that happens in a wreck. I think there’s always going to be that perfect storm, that a car can get upside down or whatever it may be, just because we’re going really fast. You make tire contact and you get any air up underneath it – the whole bottom is just a flat plate, right, basically. So air finds its way underneath there and if you’re going fast enough, it’s probably not going to stay on the ground. Unfortunately, it’s been a part of our sport for a long time. While I don’t think you can necessarily completely eliminate that, hopefully there are ways to make it better, and hopefully this is a step in the right direction. I hate that it’s an afterthought… it kind of looks silly. But outside of that, hopefully it’s an improvement. I hope we don’t find out. I hope nobody finds out, whether it works or it doesn’t work. I’m sure there will be a circumstance at some point down the road that it’s tested and we’ll all see for ourselves, and hopefully there’s just a better process of implementing these things or finding a better way to do it than kind of tacking on these little pieces here and there in the middle of the season.”
HOW SOON AFTER KANSAS DID YOU LOOK AT POINTS, KNOWING YOU HAD TALLADEGA AND THE ROVAL THAT ARE SO CRAZY? DO YOU EVEN BOTHER WITH LOOKING HOW CLOSE IT WAS?
“Yeah, I mean I knew right there after the race. I did an interview when they told me where we were at basically.. they had it up on the screen there. I was aware very quickly. I knew based on just how the day went, that it probably wasn’t very good. All things considered; we thought our performance was pretty solid. I was happy with our pace. We fought an uphill battle all day, with circumstances on pit road and so on and so forth. That was challenging. But I think the biggest miss of the day for me was not scoring more points in that second stage. We had an opportunity to get five or six (points), and I think we only got two or three. It doesn’t seem like a big deal, but anything can happen here on Sunday, and that can put you in a position to where those two or three might have meant a lot. It could potentially mean if you get through to the next round or not. Overall, based on Saturday and starting behind the eight ball and trying to claw our way out of that; I thought a top-10 was OK. But again, I would have liked to have seen some more stage points there when we had the opportunity.”
YOU’VE WON TWICE AT THE ROVAL, BUT WITH THE CHANGES TO TURNS SIX AND SEVEN, IT’S GOING TO BE DRAMATICALLY DIFFERENT. WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THAT, AND HOW ARE YOU PREPARING?
“Yeah, to me, I kind of look at it like it’s a new race track, truthfully. That section of the track is going to change the entire flow of the lap there, so I’ve been kind of approaching it as a new track with my preparation. I’ve spent some time in the simulator, just trying to really memorize the track and where the little bumps are. Typically those track scans are pretty good. I think that’s probably one of the best things about the simulator is that a driver can go and get familiar with the track layout; surface content, roughness, so on and so forth. It’s really about all I feel like I can do until we get some time on-track. Obviously, we have extra practice next week, so hopefully that’s enough to find a good rhythm and get a good flow for qualifying and then obviously for the race.”
DEPENDING ON WHERE YOU END UP ON SUNDAY WITH THE POINTS, HOW MIGHT YOUR APPROACH CHANGE, AS FAR AS YOU WANTING TO KNOW WHAT YOUR POSITION IS IN THE STANDINGS?
“Yeah, I mean we have to get through this week first. Whatever it is next week, I’ll certainly be aware throughout the day, and I’ll be aware going into it, as far as what the situation is and what the circumstances are; what’s required for us to move on or not. I think it puts a lot of emphasis on this weekend. It would be really nice to win this race for a lot of reasons. But another big one that I think can sometimes be overlooked is that whoever wins this race or the people that are up in the points and have a really good cushion or whatever, can put themselves in a position, if they have the pace, to short the stages next weekend. I think shorting the stages at the ROVAL is going to significantly increase your chances of winning that race. When I look at this weekend and the opportunities ahead, I think that’s really kind of the underlying positive of having a good week here because it really significantly helps your chances of getting five more bonus points next week, as well.”
YOU HAVEN’T HAD A WIN SINCE APRIL. OBVIOUSLY ANYONE CAN WIN ON ANY GIVEN DAY, FROM A DRIVER’S PERSPECTIVE, HOW FRUSTRATING IS THAT?
“I don’t necessarily find it frustrating. It does seem like we have a more consistent widespread number of winners yearly since we’ve had this car, so that’s been interesting to watch. And I think a lot of that has come down to just the aero-platform that we have to work with, and just how much defense can be played by the lead car; restarts shaking out, how fast your pit stop is, all those little details throughout the day can put you in a good position at the end of those races. And a lot of guys are good enough to hold on for short stints. We see a lot of green-white-checkered finishes.. all those things are really just recipes for more winners. Races that go green, the cream will eventually rise to the top, and I don’t think you see that quite as much. But when you have those short stints and guys having opportunities to get leads that might not necessarily be the best car, it puts those things into perspective and can certainly make it happen. And the fact that we have four plate races in a year now.. all these things are just promoting more and more winners, and you’ll probably continue to see that as we go down the road that we’re trucking along on.”
DOES QUALIFYING LATER TODAY DETERMINE WHETHER YOU’RE GOING TO HAVE A CONSERVATIVE OR AGGRESSIVE APPROACH TO TOMORROW’S RACE?
“I don’t think so. It would be nice to not qualify terrible, but I don’t necessarily think it’s a make-or-break. I think if you can be somewhere inside the top-15 or so, maybe just outside the top-10, I think that would be really solid and put yourself in a plenty good enough position to have a shot. I think that everybody is obviously out to try and achieve that, but I think that overall, it’s not the end of the world if you don’t qualify well. All the games that get played with manufacturers and so on and so forth, you’re going to be pitting with those guys anyways, so it’s not like it’s a standard race week, where the pit pick is quite as crucial as you would see last weekend at Kansas.”
AS STEWART-HAAS RACING’S TENURE COMES TO AN END IN THE CUP SERIES, OBVIOUSLY THEY’RE GOING TO REBRAND AND DO THINGS A LITTLE DIFFERNETLY, BUT STEWART-HAAS RACING, WHAT DO YOU THINK THERE LEGACY IS OR HOW WILL YOU REMEMBER KIND OF WHAT THAT COMPANY DID OVER THE YEARS?
“Yeah, that’s a good question. You know, my respect and admiration for Tony (Stewart) I think kind of raises my thought of that company and just what they did. I’ve always gotten along really well with him; looked up to him as a kid when I was watching him race. So I think that kind of skews my opinion a little bit. I’m not sure what his level of involvement is nowadays.. it kind of seems like there isn’t any, but I don’t really know that for sure. But when I look at what they did through the course of however many years it’s been.. I know Gene (Haas) was around long before Tony joined there, and when Tony joined, it seemed like that was when things really ramped up and improved. It was really impressive to watch because at that point in time, there wasn’t a lot of driver-owners that had had success in the sport.. very few. And I thought it was really cool to see a guy come in; kind of stick his neck out in certain areas, whether it be financially or just from a sheer time standpoint and being spread thin. I think being an owner and a driver can probably do that to you. I’ve never experienced it, but I would imagine that is a factor, and I always thought it was really cool that he went out and did that; had success with it and made it work. So yeah, you hate to see him go, just because I think the overall health of our sport wants and needs healthy race teams. They’ve been a healthy race team and I hate to see that. But I think they’ve had a solid legacy. Anytime you have something end like that, it’s really easy to forget all the good that went on and just look at what’s happened in the past year or whatever. But I still admire their efforts to go and be what they’ve become. Being a top tier team in NASCAR, that’s a hard thing to do and they did that.”
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