Chase Elliott arrives at Texas Motor Speedway this weekend with an outlook that feels vaguely familiar while also vacillating between the varied emotions that have defined his season.
NASCAR’s seven-time most popular driver is mired in a 37-race winless streak in points events that is the second-longest of his career. The longest was the 42-race drought he snapped in the April 14, 2024 race at Texas by hanging on for a victory through two overtimes.
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Asked whether he’s frustrated about returning to Texas in virtually the same position or encouraged about being the defending winner, Elliott smiled and said, “I guess both.”
“Well, the good news was it went well,” he said of the 19th career victory that wound up being his only win in 2024. “The bad news was it was 12 months ago. A lot changes in a year, and things that we are working on behind the scenes, whether a setup path or a race strategy path or whatever it is, that is going to outweigh something that went on 12 months ago.
“It’s hard to reflect that far back and think that, ‘Oh, we’ll just do what we did last year,’ and that’s going to be perfect because most of the time that’s not the case. … The lessons that we’ve learned lately are likely more applicable than those 12-plus months ago.”
Indeed, car setups and track conditions rarely stay constant enough for past results to be an accurate predictor of future success. But Elliott has remained remarkably consistent despite being absent from Victory Lane.
He is the only driver to have finished in the top 20 of the first 10 races, and he’s fourth in points despite having no stage wins. Assessing his 2025 results, the Hendrick Motorsports star sees the glass as both half-full and half-empty.
“I’m somewhat happy,” the 2020 Cup champion said. “No different than anyone else on our team. We want more. I think we’re capable of more. And we just have high expectations. We are proud of those good runs that we’ve had, but we know that there’s more in the tank. The season’s still very early, and I’ve seen enough high spots to kind of give me hope.”
Elliott does have a checkered flag, having dominated The Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium in early February. Since winning the exhibition season opener, the highlights were fourths at Circuit of The Americas and Martinsville (where he led a race-high 42 laps). An eighth at Darlington was “a good step in the right direction.”
But the team’s less heralded performances have him nearly as optimistic. In the season’s first three points races at Daytona, Atlanta and COTA, the No. 9 team worked feverishly to repair damage from incidents and salvage a result.
“Our team does a really good job of just trying to piece stuff together,” Elliott said. “It just comes down to those guys being prepared on pit road for toe-link changes or needing to patch together body pieces. A lot of that stuff comes from, from their preparation and hard work throughout the week to just make sure that they’re ready for those types of circumstances that can be thrown at them. So that is the only reason why we didn’t finish outside the top 20 at those races. It’d be great to pair that with some really good results and race wins.”
Texas should be a good opportunity. Elliott’s breakthrough Xfinity Series victory came at the track as a rookie on the way to a 2014 championship. That was among the earliest of several memorable moments with sponsor NAPA, and his No. 9 will carry a special paint scheme at Texas to honor the company’s 100th anniversary.
“Everyone knows they’ve been a huge piece of my career and a vital piece of the puzzle to my career even becoming a career,” Elliott said. “I really can’t say enough about them and what they’ve done for me and my family and everyone at Hendrick Motorsports as well. I think we’ve all kind of become a part of one another’s families over the years, and it’s been a really nice and natural fit. It wouldn’t even feel right to go race without them at this point.”