Despite building on lead, Elliott not satisfied

Any doubt of a poor result happening again at Charlotte seemed to fade away when he earned his second 21 Means 21 Pole Award of his career earlier on Friday.

Elliott spent much of the Drive for the Cure 300 in the top five, led a race-high 66 laps, but had to fight hard at the end with just two fresh left side tires and two scuffs on the right side to finish eighth.

The JR Motorsports driver was in a bit of a pickle on tires after pitting early in the race at Lap 19 during the second caution. Crew chief Greg Ives expected more cars to pit then -- but they didn't -- and Elliott fell from second to 19th for the Lap 22 restart. On a fresher set than others, Elliott worked his way back through the field and retook the lead at Lap 61 but the tire situation late derailed his chances. Overall, Elliott saw the lead four times.

Elliott didn't think the pit calls hurt him. Instead, he said he felt he hindered his chances at a victory.

"I don't think it did," Elliott said of the calls. "There's been a lot of times this year we've been on the other end of that stick and kind of taken the conservative route and it's bitten us a lot. We wanted to make sure that didn't happen to us tonight and I don't think it was the calls' fault at all, by any means. I think Greg called a good race. I think a lot of it was due to some of the worst restarts in the history of racing on my end. That's just pitiful on my part to have the lead four or five times and I couldn't even come around to the line with the lead. Just pitiful on my end."

Elliott did still leave the Charlotte race with the points lead. In fact, he improved his lead to 42 points over JR Motorsports teammate Regan Smith, who finished 11th in the race. Smith survived what could have been a bad night for him. He battled a left rear tire issue early that left him in 29th place early but fought back and wound up leading nine laps on the night.

The slight gain for the championship was not a comfort to Elliott on this night.

"Regardless of what (the standings look) like, I don't like running the way we did tonight, or at least finishing the way we did," Elliott said. "We were able to lead some laps and stuff and that's something to be proud of but I think we're better than that and I'm not going to be satisfied until we can get where we need to be."

Some drivers were not as fortunate, as one championship contender saw his title hopes take a big hit -- literally.

Ty Dillon, who came into the race third in the point standings, smacked the wall after a tire went down as he was running in the top five on Lap 59. The bigger hit for Dillon came on Lap 75, however, with his involvement in a big, six-car wreck that hurt his title chances in a bad way. The Richard Childress Racing rookie finished in 30th place, now 64 points back of Elliott. Dillon's first DNF of the season was enough to drop him to fifth overall.

"We had a chance to win this race, we had a legitimate shot to win," Dillon said after the wreck. "I made a bit of a mistake there. I could have been a little smarter."

After re-taking the points lead following his third win of the season at Chicagoland Speedway in July, Elliott has built up his points lead heading into the two-week off-period thanks to 11 straight top-10 finishes.

The points leader did say the importance of the off-weeks could not be understated.

"These two off-weeks are important," Elliott said. "I think a lot can be gained or lost if you are not careful in these two off-weeks. That's a lot of time guys have at the shop to massage on things and rebuild three race cars for these final three races of the season. So, we need to make sure we do our part on that end at the shop. I feel like we will and I need to make sure I step up on my end to make sure I don't make mistakes like I made tonight."

The Nationwide Series will be off for the next two weekends and will return with three races to go at Texas Motor Speedway for the O'Reilly Auto Parts Challenge (Nov. 1, 3:30 p.m. ET, ESPN2).

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