Chase Elliott thought his crash on Saturday was going to eliminate him from the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs but more brutally and honestly, he thought his Hendrick Motorsports No. 9 team ‘really deserved to be’ due to how they’ve performed as of late.
This was the analysis of the 2020 Cup Series champion himself during a Wednesday appearance on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
Elliott crashed out of the Bristol Night Race due to a move down the track in front of John Hunter Nemechek. The contact sent the No. 9 hard into the wall and out of the race.
“I just felt the urgency to get to the bottom and try to do what I could to save some tire,” Elliott said on Sirius. “… It was a high risk, but I felt like it was a risk that I needed to try to take at that point in time in my head. Unfortunately, didn’t work out.”
Chase Elliott with damage, Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet
Photo by: Jeff Robinson/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
This was his sixth finish outside of the top-10 over the past eight races. However, Elliott started the playoffs as the seventh seed and had seven points above the cutline to play with. His 17th place run did not help matters but a third-place at Gateway gave him just enough of a margin to survive a worst-case scenario.
He just didn’t realize it when he got out of the car and then talked to the media.
“At that time, I thought our night, I thought our season was over, to be honest,” Elliott told host Dave Moody. “I didn’t have a good grasp on where some of the other competitors below the cutline were running.
“Had a brief conversation with (crew chief) Alan (Gustafson) right when I got out of the car. I was like, ‘Man is that going to knock us out?’ He said, ‘Yeah, I think so.’ At that point, obviously, we’re just bummed.
“It took some time to kind of realize the situation and what it was going to take to knock us out. I got to watch it on TV with everybody else. It wasn’t the most pleasant hour and a half or so of my life watching, but it worked out, fortunately. Got really lucky with that, no question.”
So now, once again, Elliott is the seventh seed but now has just a five point advantage over the new cutline after the elimination of four drivers at Bristol. New Hampshire has some similarities to Gateway where Hendrick Motorsports excelled earlier in the month but Elliott says he and his team need to step up or his worst fears about this season will manifest in this round.
New Hampshire
Kansas
Roval
“I just feel like, yeah, you’re kind of in a spot where, ‘Man, we really didn’t deserve to be here based on the week before, let’s go and make the very most of it,’” Elliott continued with Moody.
“I just feel like there’s nothing to lose for us at this point. We’ve got to make something happen, get some life and get our heads down and just grind it out these next three weeks.
“It’s kind of been one of those years in general, just trying, some of those days taking what was there. I was really encouraged by our Gateway, to be frank, and I thought there was a lot of really good stuff that went on there throughout the course of the event.
“I think New Hampshire has some similarities to Gateway, so I’m looking forward to see how we stack up in that regard.”
