Chase Elliott looks to turn great starting position into better finish
Make no mistake. Chase Elliott is pleased to be rolling off the starting grid in the fourth position for tonight's Duck Commander 500 at Texas Motor Speedway.
But the Sprint Cup rookie bristled when it was suggested that it puts him in position to challenge for what one reporter called "a good top-10 finish."
That is not really what he's looking to accomplish in this race, with television coverage beginning tonight at 7 p.m. ET on FOX.
"Well, we obviously want to do better than a top-10 finish," Elliott said. "We want to be contenders and I think we have the team capable of doing that."
In his first full-time Sprint Cup season while driving the No. 24 Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports, Elliott already is itching for his inaugural Cup victory. He also made five starts last year, so tonight's race will be the 12th time he's lined up with NASCAR's best drivers.
Elliott sat on the pole for the season-opening Daytona 500 and now has qualified 10th or better in four of the seven races this season. He also has two eighth-place finishes and a season-best sixth at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif., although the fact that he ended up finishing 37th in the Daytona 500 is a reminder that qualifying well is no guarantee he will finish well.
So he said the best thing about qualifying fourth was that it enabled his team to select a favorable pit stall, which should help him stay up front in the race.
"For us, we recognize that having a good pit-road selection is the biggest thing," Elliott said. "Starting good is nice, but I think that pit-road selection is very important."
Then again, he's also smart enough to know that a favorable pit stall has its limits, too, on how much it can influence a good finish.
The main ingredients needed, especially during a night race at a place like fast 1.5-mile Texas Motor Speedway where temperatures are going to get cooler as the event progresses, are mistake-free pit stops and the ability to make the right adjustments to the car as the night wears on.
The rest is then up to the driver.
"You really have to have your car driving good," Elliott said. "I think it's going to be slick. Just because you start good doesn't mean you are going to stay there. You have to work on your car and hopefully try to move forward (during the race). ... It's nice to have a good starting spot, but the most important thing is to be good in the race."
