A return to winning ways for Chase Elliott ends his 42-race winless streak

Chase Elliott ended his 42-race winless streak by claiming a historic win at the Texas Motor Speedway last night. The 28-year-old took victory in overtime after 16 caution flags were thrown during the 267-lap race.

After finishing third place last week at Martinsville Elliott continued his good form and claimed his first victory of the year for Hendrick Motorsport.

After the race, Elliott reflected on what it was like to be back in victory road once again after such a long time away:

“Everything went our way; we got the caution early on and got some track position that got us up in the top ten. We had a couple of good restarts and a couple of good pit stops.

We just hung around really and got to the end and to get to the end and be on the front couple rows, when you have restarts and see green and white chequers everybody has a shot on those front couple of rows.”

Although Elliott summed up the race in a rather calm manner the race was anything but with five cars not making it to the chequered flag. The 2020 NASCAR Cup Series Champion did not shy away from any of the on-track antics with his battle with Denny Hamlin and Tyler Reddick towards the latter end of the race:

“Tyler (Reddick) and Denny (Hamlin) were on the front row, and I had a run to his bumper, and I thought he was going to block the bottom and he didn’t, so I was like ‘all right I'm heading south if you don’t want to go’.

“Fortunately, I was able to get clear and that set us up to have an opportunity, we were really good on the short run, but I got loose as we got into the runs, so the quick runs at the end fell into our favour. I am glad it did for sure.”

After not tasting victory for so long Elliott reflected on what a journey it has been since his last win in the 2022 YellaWood 500 at the Talladega Superspeedway.

“It certainly has not been fun or a lot of it has not been fun it has also grown us and grown me I feel like it has shaped who we are as a group. We have been through a bunch together and we have had a lot of success, but we have had some rough years too.

It is refreshing because I feel like this group could have very easily split or something could have happened or somebody could have thrown in the towel, I feel we are stronger today than we have ever been, from a mental toughness standpoint and our mental drive you can jump ship, or you can stick with it and this group has double downed on sticking with it and sticking with me and it has made me a better person.”

After the opening nine races of the season Elliott now sits fourth overall in the NASCAR Cup Series standings.