Chase Elliott delighted in the novelty of it, checking off a career first in his 11th season of NASCAR Cup Series racing, especially at a track that’s historically been a love/hate venue for him. Back in March, Elliott marked his earliest scratch of the win column with a Martinsville Speedway triumph. Sunday brought another first-time feat, reaching multiple-winner status at another career-earliest point.
The accomplishment was a source of pride for Elliott and his No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports group, and he noted how each facet of the team effort was “elevated” in his Sunday march to victory at Texas Motor Speedway. Though the largely seamless execution may have made those matters look easy, Elliott boiled it all down to simplest terms: “It’s hard to win.”
Several usual front-runners learned just how difficult that proposition was in the Lone Star State, where one of the diciest of NASCAR’s intermediate tracks chewed up champions and would-be contenders in the Würth 400. The Cup Series standings shuffled accordingly, but Elliott solidified his spot in its upper reaches.
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Though he admitted that his organization had opened the year at a perceived deficit, Elliott is now just one of two drivers with multiple Cup Series wins this season, the other being five-time victor and series points leader Tyler Reddick.
“In the last couple of weeks, I think all those things, you start putting pieces together and improving and getting to a good place,” said Elliott, who led a race-high 87 laps. “Then you combine that with just a really good day of execution for our team in particular and wound up with a great result. Really proud of that.”
Several others found the wrong end of Texas’ wrath, which adheres to the “Don’t Mess With …” statewide trope of being bigger, badder, what have you. The 1.5-mile Fort Worth track has always had a bit of swagger in its marketing, dating back to the “Shut up and race” bravado that answered critics from its earliest days. It’s also never quite fit the mold of other intermediate-sized circuits, with design quirks that have set it apart as it has evolved.
Sunday, those treacherous deviations snagged the sweaters of some of NASCAR’s best. Kyle Larson lost it all on his own exiting Turn 2 midway through, finding trouble in roughly the same place that Bubba Wallace cracked the wall in a solo incident in practice the day before. Christopher Bell found his way to the top of the leaderboard, but then critically erred on what he called a toss-up decision on accident avoidance. Joey Logano was out early, too, though his No. 22 Ford’s demise was owed less to Texas’ turbulent traits and more to an especially disorderly pit road, where his pointblank contact with Cole Custer‘s stopped car forced an early retirement.
All three stars took significant hits in the season-long points count-up, with each losing multiple positions in the Cup Series standings. Logano’s two-spot drop held extra significance, as he now sits in 17th place — seven points behind the provisional cut-off for The Chase’s 16-driver postseason field.
MORE: Cup Series standings | All of Chase Elliott’s Cup wins
Elliott’s stock, though, has stabilized if not increased as the first year of this new-look points format takes shape. Now 11 races into the 26-race regular season, the six drivers who have won this year all reside in the top seven in the standings, and Elliott rides a respectable third.
There’s perhaps an imbalance of power near the top, however, since two drivers have won nearly two-thirds of the events. Reddick finished fourth Sunday at Texas, maintaining his three-digit standings advantage — 109 points over runner-up Denny Hamlin and 117 over Elliott — and his bead on the Regular Season Championship and the bonus that comes with it when the points are reset 15 races from now.
Alan Gustafson, crew chief of Elliott’s No. 9 Chevy, said the postseason re-rack has the potential to be a great equalizer. Reddick’s hot streak put him 100 points clear of his nearest challengers in a 10-race span to start the year. The 10-race Chase stretch that closes the season will have a 16-driver field, also with a 100-point separation from first to 16th. “Do the math,” Gustafson says, suggesting anything could happen in the season’s home stretch.
“I do think, look, everybody wants as many points as you can get,” the veteran crew chief added. “Certainly the best teams are going to position themselves towards the top, but I’m not sleeping on anybody. I mean, somebody can figure something out and get hot. I don’t think 100 points makes anybody safe.”
One of the few safe passages Sunday belonged to Elliott, who parried when the pandemonium flared up. Texas was the site of his breakthrough O’Reilly Auto Parts Series victory, a triumph that helped launch his star and served as a springboard to the 2014 series championship as an 18-year-old rookie.
When Texas underwent a repave and reconfiguration in 2017, his opinion of the Fort Worth facility turned. “I’ve trashed this place for years,” Elliott admitted, saying his growing disregard for Texas synced with a drop in his performance there.
Two Texas wins in three years tend to sway those prevailing thoughts. When Gustafson pointed out “Two-time winner at Texas, baby,” on the No. 9 Chevrolet’s cool-down lap, Elliott said he mulled it over in his mind. “I thought, I’ll be damned,” Elliott said. “I’d have never thought.”
Running better has helped Texas grow on him, Elliott said. A welcome post-race reception from a sold-out crowd helped, too.
“You know, for as hard of a time as I’ve given it, for some reason it likes me,” Elliott said. “It loved me back. I didn’t like it, but it liked me. So I’m learning to come around a little bit.”
