Points leader’s crew chief spent part of week working with Dale Jr. on ’15 setup
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FORT WORTH, Texas — Chase Elliott has a 42-point lead on his nearest competitor in the NASCAR Nationwide Series standings. At this point, only a complete meltdown in Saturday’s O’Reilly Auto Parts Challenge (3:30 p.m. ET, ESPN) would prevent him from taking another step toward becoming the youngest champion ever in a major NASCAR series.
Nevertheless, Elliott spent some time on Friday answering questions centering on potential issues that could slow down the No. 9 championship express.
One was whether it could become a distraction that outgoing crew chief Greg Ives is spending time with the No. 88 Sprint Cup Series car and tested with Dale Earnhardt Jr. earlier in the week at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
As he said earlier in the season when Ives first got the No. 88 job for 2015, Elliott said he was unfazed by the crew chief using some of his time to focus elsewhere. Elliott said he understood Ives needed to do that because of the big job he has coming up stepping in for Steve Letarte and teaming with a driver who will be coming off one of his best seasons to date.
Despite the forays into the Sprint Cup world, Ives is keeping up his end of the bargain back in the Nationwide Series garage, according to Elliott.
“As far as his mentality and mindset and where his focus is, it hasn’t changed a bit,” Elliott said. “I think he has done a great job balancing what he needs to do to prepare himself for next year and make sure he gives the Nationwide effort on the 9 car the best effort he can. And I think he’s done a good job of doing both in my personal opinion.”
Other items that could potentially derail Elliott’s championship aspirations include looking too far ahead and the physical demands of a long season in that he has never experienced at this level.
But like checking off items on a honey-do list, Elliott addressed both of those issues and said he wasn’t worried about lapsing into complacency or running out of the energy needed to focus on his ultimate goal.
“As far as racing at as many different locations in the United States, I’ve never done that much traveling and stuff as we’ve done this year,” Elliott said. “But I have raced just as many, if not more races, than what we have in the past. But I think the biggest thing is just the traveling. That can set in on you, but if you love it, the biggest thing for me is we’ve had two weeks off and there were a lot of bored days in those two weeks for me. So I’m just happy to be back and look forward to racing.”
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