Elliott on teammate Smith: 'When the green flag comes out, he's a competitor'
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For all those predicting major strides in Chase Elliott's rookie NASCAR Nationwide Series season, none had to wait too long for validation. Just six races in, the 18-year-old prodigy held off the best of the Sprint Cup double-dippers at Texas Motor Speedway for his first Nationwide win.
Now with the season winding down, Elliott returns to the Fort Worth track, the site of his breakthrough victory, with even more validation work behind him. His three wins and a stunning 24 top-10 finishes in 30 races have launched him to the top rung of the standings and within shouting distance of history heading into Saturday's O'Reilly Auto Parts Challenge (3:30 p.m. ET, ESPN).
Elliott has a chance to become the youngest champion in any of NASCAR's three national series and the first rookie title-winner in Nationwide Series history. The youngster -- along with teammate Regan Smith, 42 points back in second place -- also has a shot at the first Nationwide crown for JR Motorsports, owned by Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Even with the burden of a championship battle potentially intensifying in its last three races, Elliott has remained on an even keel without looking too far ahead.
"I just try to keep it as simple as possible and keep it as stress-free you can and take it a week at a time," Elliott said. "I put a lot of emphasis on that, and that's just the truth. You've got to take it a week at a time and try to just compete for wins. I think that's the best way to go about it. Hopefully we're still in the hunt when it counts and we can battle to the end."
While Elliott has lofty goals, so does his veteran teammate. Smith, 31, prevailed in the season opener at Daytona International Speedway and has matched his teammate's tally of 24 top-10s in 2014.
While the spirit of teamwork has become part of the collective fabric at JRM, Elliott said that offering help has some natural limits.
"It's no different than racing anybody else," Elliott said. "Regan's a great teammate, and he's a good racer, a very smart racer, and he's helped me a lot this year. Each week, we share information, and that's great and all, but when the green flag comes out, he's a competitor. I look at it that way and so does he."
Behind the two front-runners in the series standings is a three-way logjam for third through fifth place. Brian Scott sits third, 61 points behind Elliott. The Richard Childress Racing driver is just two points ahead of Joe Gibbs Racing's Elliott Sadler and three ahead of RCR teammate Ty Dillon.
For Dillon, who prevailed on the 1.5-mile track last fall in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series, he'll have some extra incentive besides trying to jockey for position in the standings. He'll be racing against brother Austin Dillon, the 2013 Nationwide champ who will be making his first start of the season in the series, driving the RCR No. 33 Chevrolet.
The 300-miler also signals the closing stages of the team owner's championship battle. The Team Penske No. 22 Ford operation currently holds a 31-point advantage over Joe Gibbs Racing's No. 54 Toyota team. Joey Logano will drive the Penske No. 22 this weekend, and Kyle Busch, a six-time Texas winner on the Nationwide side, will be behind the wheel of the No. 54.
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