XFINITY champ recalls Texas coming out party
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FORT WORTH, Texas — Chase Elliott was perched atop the No. 9 hauler in his NAPA blue firesuit, gazing out onto Texas Motor Speedway’s sprawling track. Most XFINITY Series drivers were heading out onto the track for Thursday’s first practice and Elliott would eventually climb down to post the ninth-fastest and, later eighth-fastest speed, in the field.
Call it focus. Call it studying. But when it comes to racing, Elliott has always preferred to keep his blinders up, fixating on the task at hand.
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“That’s one thing we’ve always tried to do racing, at least my racing growing up,” Elliott said during an appearance at a Fort Worth, Texas, elementary school earlier on Thursday. “We used to go park as far away from everybody else as we can get and race and just do our own thing — show up, race and go home and not worry about everybody else. And that’s kind of the same way we go about it (today).”
Elliott’s focus led him to hoist the now-XFINITY Series trophy over his 18-year-old shoulders last season at Homestead-Miami Speedway as a rookie. This season has a different feel though, as it marks his sophomore year in the XFINITY Series and last season before he replaces Jeff Gordon in the famed No. 24 Sprint Cup car for Hendrick Motorsports.
The pressure would be enough to break most young drivers. And the success would be enough to go to their heads. But Elliott’s calm and humble attitude just leads him to focus on one race at a time.
“I kind of go by each weekend just like any other,” Elliott said. “Like it was the first time we came and raced … You just can’t worry about everybody else – you’ve got to do your own thing.”
Nonetheless, the race this weekend at Texas Motor Speedway does hold a special memory for the budding star, as it was the site of his first XFINITY win.
“This was a great weekend for us last year,” Elliott said. “… I’m happy to be back and this was just a fun race last year, the way the race track is and especially at night — you can move around and it puts on some good racin’.”
His current season’s streak bodes well for his chances this weekend, the No. 9 team having posted four straight finishes of seventh or better. Three of those four top-10s have come at 1.5-mile or longer tracks like Texas.
“I hope to just put together a solid weekend,” Elliott said. “I feel like we’ve had speed the past couple weeks and I thought Phoenix we were fast and at the end of the race last week at Fontana, we were fast there too. So I hope we can start out good and consistently get a little better throughout the weekend.”
For Elliott, the key to success ultimately boils down to putting together all the pieces.
“Everyone has a job on our team and I think everyone can do it,” Elliott said. “We just have to step up. I know my guys are going to do their part, I just need to do my job a little better and hopefully we can do that this weekend.”
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