Jacob Riis was a Danish-American social reformer and journalist, credited as a father of modern photography who was one of the first to adopt the use of flash while capturing images. You’ve … probably never heard of him.
And that’s OK, as he died more than a century ago and doesn’t have much relevancy to NASCAR as a whole.
But this past Sunday’s winner at Kansas Speedway, Chase Elliott, can probably relate to his most-famous quote.
“When nothing seems to help,” wrote Riis, “I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that last blow that did it, but all that had gone before.”
So, when the Hendrick Motorsports driver told NASCAR.com on Thursday morning that, “Honestly, I really don’t know (what’s clicked over the past few months). Our approach really hasn’t been any different,” at first blush it sounds like he’s downplaying things a bit. His average finish, average start, top fives and top 10s are all on pace to pretty much match his 2017 figures, the only difference is in the win column. Surely, something had to have changed.
Maybe not.
With now three wins coming in quick order over the past 11 races after two and a half years of frustration, “Chase Elliott 2.0” appears to have emerged. This one wins races. This one finishes what he started. This one has an actual, honest-to-goodness shot at hoisting the trophy in a few weeks at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
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But that’s not so, he says. Elliott claims to be the same person he was a year ago, just “another year older, I guess.”
Perhaps it just took the stonecutter’s 100 blows – or in his case, 98 fruitless starts before his first win – before the 101st helped “Chase Elliott: The Original Model” break through.
“I’ll be honest with you, we have not changed a single bit of our preparation since I’ve been here in 2016,” said Elliott, fourth in Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series points. “Our meeting schedule is the same, we still talk about similar things. Sure, I think we’ve evolved and gotten to know each other better as a team, which certainly is worth a lot, but the step-by-step process of what we do is not changed a bit.
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“I think that’s good. Knowing what we do is a good process and you need to trust in that. I feel like I always have trusted in it, I’m just glad we’ve been able to have some results to back that up lately.”
It’s a simple formula, really. Put in the work, do the right things and focus on the process. The results will eventually follow.
Makes sense when you think about it. Hendrick Motorsports had pretty much laminated the recipe to success at NASCAR’s highest level over the past two-plus decades.
Just because the organization hit a downturn in the midst of the most drastic driver turnover in its existence doesn’t mean that all the ingredients and step-by-step directions weren’t there and being implemented. It was just going to take some time to simmer.
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Elliott will be a primary focus throughout the weekend, as the series shifts to Martinsville Speedway for the Round of 8-opening First Data 500 (2:30 p.m. ET, NBCSN). He’s the hottest driver in the series and this race marked the most-talked about incident of last season with his run-in with Joe Gibbs Racing’s Denny Hamlin.
True to his earlier point, however, is that he’s still the same old Chase Elliott. Never too high, never too low, and never dwelling on the past.
What’s the thing that stands out most to him about Martinsville a year ago?
“The biggest thing I think about from last year’s race going into this year is just how fast we were and having the opportunity we had,” Elliott said. “I think that’s something you need to look back on, because there’s been more things that we can look at with the cars that try to produce the same speed, hopefully better. So, that’s the most important thing.
“Harping on (the Hamlin incident) isn’t going to get you anywhere and he and I have had no issues with each other since. I feel like, if anything, we’ve raced each other with a lot of respect and I have no problems there. I’m just looking back to the kind of speed we had there last fall and seeing if we can replicate that again this year.”
If he and his No. 9 Chevrolet team can replicate that – he led 123 laps, which is 103 more than in all of his other Martinsville starts combined – look out, world.
The stone has been split.