Photo Credit: Noel Lanier
Chase Elliott, driver of the No. 24 Sunenergy 1 Chevrolet, could use a good run this weekend in getting himself into the Chase. He enters this weekend partially with a small advantage over his competitors as he recently participated in a tire test recently at Watkins Glen International Raceway in preparation for his first Sprint Cup race at the famous road course.
“We learned some good ideas and things to come into this weekend with,” Elliott stated. “I’m excited about it, and am looking forward to getting the weekend started.”
The cars they are racing this season at the track will not have the downforce they were accustomed to in the past races. The American driver says it will be a fresh start for him because minus the tire test he has never ran on the track before.
“Like most road courses, even at a place like Sonoma, you see guys trying to stretch tires and how we talk about running the race ‘backwards’ from a strategy point, so that will definitely be big,” Elliott added. “Here on Sunday, I expect it to be hard to pass. It’s really, really fast and I do think if you get out front, it’s going to be a major advantage as it is any weekend. I don’t expect that being different here.”
Coming into this weekend the second-generation driver hasn’t had a top-10 since the June race at Michigan International Speedway. The Dawsonville, Georgia native says he needs to focus on improving his results and doesn’t think a conservative approach is the way to go about it.
“I think sometimes being too conservative; you can get yourself in more trouble,” Elliott quoted. “I don’t really want to change how we do things as a team or what we set for to try to do at the race track each weekend or the result that we’re trying to achieve. But for me, anytime you’re not getting the result you want to get or you tore up a lot of race cars like I have here lately, you obviously want to improve upon that. So, I just try to be a little smarter and do my job better and try to get the result that we show up at the race track to try to get.”
The rookie driver in the Sprint Cup Series has gotten some pretty good advise about racing at Watkins Glen from his father retired NASCAR Driver Bill Elliott. He says him and his dad have talked more about this weekend then they have about any other track throughout the season, noting his dad came to the tire test with him.
“Brad (Keselowski) was here and I was glad he was okay after his wreck and a couple other cars that were really good and have had a lot of success here that we’ve seen just watching on TV the past number of years,” Elliott added. “So, he got to watch and kind of sit in the corner and see what I was doing differently than those guys and try to address it and make it better. Certainly, like I said, those are some good ones to learn from who have had a lot of success. So, I think that was helpful. We discussed some of it and kind of how to approach some of the corners and some of the areas of the race track differently than how I started the day approaching it at the first day of the test. So, I think that was helpful. I expect him to do some of the same today if he sees something else going on.”
