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DOVER, Delaware — Sometimes it just ain’t your day. For Chase Elliott, it just ain’t been his month.
The Hendrick Motorsports driver rolled into his sophomore Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series campaign picking up right where he left off, notching an elite average finish of 7.88 through the season’s first eight races.
In the four races since? A dismal 30.25, with zero laps led and a single finish on the lead lap.
“Yeah, it was a rough whole month of May really for us,” Elliott said Friday at Dover International Speedway, site of Sunday’s AAA 400 Drive for Autism (1 p.m. ET, FS1). “We are happy to see June here and just kind of a shot to try to improve and get some good solid finishes if nothing else or really just finish would be good.
“That is our goal this weekend; to try not to have anything stupid happen, finish and hopefully just try to move on down the road and try to get some just solid days, just good experience, execution and just exercise all the parts of the race that you have to do to run well and compete to win.”
Elliott’s Coca-Cola 600 run ended before even five percent of the 400 laps had been run, when a Jeffery Earnhardt malfunction on Lap 19 resulted in Brad Keselowski’s No. 2 Team Penske rear-ending his No. 24 Chevrolet, thus ending the day for both drivers.
MORE: Elliott, Keselowski wreck ends Coca-Cola 600 early for both
It’d be easy to chalk that up to a touch of “if it weren’t for bad luck …” and adopt a woe-is-me attitude, but the wise-beyond-his-years Elliott isn’t about to seek pity.
“You can’t really change it and what’s done is done and a lot of it has just been … I don’t like using the term bad luck, because I think a lot of your luck starts when you leave the race shop, but I guess just misfortune and kind of being at a bad spot at the wrong time,” said Elliott, who has seen his points standing sink from second to seventh over this stretch. “So, I don’t like using the term bad luck, but I guess some of it has been so to speak.
“I’m not real sure what you call it, but the big thing for us is you got to keep trying to stay high on what you have going on, try to run well. If you put yourself in good position long enough I think eventually good things will happen to you. I’m a pretty strong believer in what goes around comes around and I think everything in racing, that is one thing I have learned over my career I think everything in racing comes full circle at some point.”
No sympathy-seeking there from the 21-year-old.
Still, it can’t be easy to swallow the fact that in the midst of this month-long slump, the sport has anointed two more first-time winners while Elliott — who many pinned to be the first rising star to break through for a W in 2017 — has endured arguably the most challenging stretch of his Monster Energy Series career.
It would be easy, however, to exhibit jealousy. But guess who isn’t showing it?
“You always want to win and you always want to beat the next guy, but at the same time Ricky (Stenhouse, Jr.) did a great job at Talladega, had a strong car, did a great job missing all the wrecks and putting himself in good position. He has put in due time. He is a champion in NASCAR. He has had success here, he deserves to be here and why shouldn’t he deserve to win? Happy for him.
“Happy for Austin (Dillon), also another champion that has put in his time and had an opportunity to win and did a great job, executed a great race. I hope that people don’t say, ‘Ah it was a fuel mileage race, his first win.’ I just hate hearing that because the guy has been around he has run well at times, he has had other opportunities to win, so I’m happy for him, too. I hope we can do it at some point. That would be nice, but sure, I want to beat them, but I respect it and I’m happy for them and we will have our opportunity as well.”
Stenhouse was crowned XFINITY Series champion in 2011 and ’12, followed by Dillon in 2013.
The next season? Elliott.
That trend — though bucked by 2015 champ Chris Buescher winning at Pocono last year — suggests his first appearance in Victory Lane is coming soon, possibly even beginning this weekend at the “Monster Mile.” In a pair of Dover starts last year, Elliott raced to a pair of third-place finishes.
Hoping to see if his tide was indeed turning once the calendar showed June, Elliott spent part of Thursday with Denny Hamlin at the Dover Downs casino located at the DIS premises. It, uh, did not go well.
“Yeah, struggled,” said Elliott. “I was hoping May was over and June was going to turn a new page and if the blackjack table has any frame on June, it’s not good.”
Thankfully for him, he doesn’t put too much stock in luck.