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RICHMOND, Va. -- Chase Elliott certainly isn't used to the view he'll have from way back on Saturday night's starting grid at Richmond International Raceway, but he sounded confident after qualifying that it would be a temporary situation.
Elliott will start his 3M-American Red Cross No. 24 Chevrolet from the 34th spot on the 40-car grid -- the worst qualifying effort in the rookie's brief 31-race NASCAR Sprint Cup Series career. But listening to the 20-year-old on pit road Friday evening after first-round qualifying, he was clear that the start may just make the finish more dramatic.
"I think for us, it doesn't change our outlook or anything,'' Elliott said. "It's an unfortunate starting spot, terrible really. But we'll think about it tonight and just try to look at what our teammates have. They were really fast and we struggled on our mock runs today as well. Hopefully our race trim stuff is better.
"The bad news is it's a bad starting spot. The good news is it's a long race."
In two previous Richmond races, Elliott had finishes of 16th and 12th.
And all three of his Hendrick Motorsports teammates advanced to the final round of qualifying. Kasey Kahne was fastest of the three with a seventh-place effort. Toyota driver and Virginia native Denny Hamlin won the pole.
"This is a race track where if you can get yourself driving well, the stopwatch doesn't mean a whole lot if you have your car driving the way you want it to,'' Elliott said. "So I can't say we have that either right now, but hopefully we will tomorrow night.''