Chase Elliott stays positive under pressure, learns to let the bad days go

RELATED: Full Bristol schedule | Playoff standings Chase Elliott knew his streak of second-place finishes at Michigan International Speedway would end eventually. "I was just hoping it was going to end for the better and not for the worse," Elliott said with a smile on Friday at Bristol Motor Speedway, regarding his eighth-place showing last week in the Irish Hills. Despite still searching for his first victory in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series, the 21-year-old remains positive when it comes to his sophomore season. With the exception of an engine failure at Indianapolis Motor Speedway that saddled him with a 39th-place result, Elliott has finished in the top 13 for the past six races and has a season average finishing position of 13.6. But he's also a bit of a realist. While his results this season are trending upward from last year on paper -- his average finish from the first 23 races of the season has increased by 16 percent and he's led 50 more laps this year than he had at this point last year -- Elliott hasn't recorded the results that most everyone had thought he would with a rookie season under his belt, his sheer talent and time to get acclimated to crew chief Alan Gustafson and the No. 24 team. Translation: He hasn't turned a solid top 10 or top five into a win yet. "We had some really strong runs to this point in the season last year. We have had some strong runs this year, but I don't feel like quite as many as we did last season," Elliott acknowledged. "It's not for a lack of effort or a lack of trying harder or trying to run well. Things just haven't worked out as many times as they did last year for us to have some great opportunities to go win races. "We are working hard to try to get back in those positions more often and hate we didn't capitalize on the opportunities we had last year because looking back it's like, man I would love to have as good of a chance as we had some weekends last season. I didn't realize how good of opportunities we did have when we had them looking back. That is frustrating. There were some days last year too, where I felt like we did make the most of our opportunity and it still didn't work out." RELATED: Playoff Bubble Watch heading into Bristol High expectations come with having the last name Elliott in NASCAR, stemming from his Hall of Fame father Bill Elliott. They also come with being part of a high-caliber team like Hendrick Motorsports -- especially when Elliott's teammate is seven-time premier series champion Jimmie Johnson. "When the guy next door is winning a lot of races, coming off of a championship season, I don't necessarily know that it's pressure, but I think it definitely drives you to want to do that and know that you have that opportunity and the same chance he does next door," Elliott said on Johnson. "... I know for me, if we are somewhere and we are struggling and he is not, then I don't think there is any excuse for that. That is kind of how I view it. If that is the case then I want to make sure I do my job to the full potential. "In my eyes ... if they are having a good day, I think we can have a good day, too." Elliott sits 14th in the playoff standings, two spots from the final spot in the 16-car playoffs. Right now, he's "in," but should the series see three new winners, or if he has three poor finishes, Elliott could find himself out of the playoffs. RELATED: Elliott has interesting plans for the eclipse But the rising star appears calm and prepared for the impending task, as he prepares for Saturday's Food City 500 on the high banks of Bristol (7:30 p.m. ET, NBC, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). "I think I'm in a good place mentally," Elliott said. "I just think for a lot of things that you go through, the good and the bad, you do have to let some of it just go because there's going to be days where you're giving it all you have and it doesn't work out for you. Some days that's your fault. And if that is my fault, those are the emotional days and those are the ones I'm going to be really frustrated with, as we've all seen. I want to hold myself accountable. And there are some days where we might have just all missed it as a team. And we're going to run good together and run bad together, regardless. "So, you really have to let all the days go whether they were good or bad ... It's easy to have everybody hyped-up and attitudes would be great when you're running good. It's the years and the weekends that you're struggling to keep everybody's morale high. I think Alan (Gustafson) does a really good job of that."