Chase Elliott proving to be a ‘world-class road racer’

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Terrin Waack NASCAR.com August 17, 2020 at 8:21 AMTwists and turns are no match for Chase Elliott.

With now four of his eight career wins happening on non-oval tracks, the 24-year-old continues to prove he can successfully steer his No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet both left and right. He has mastered the art of road-course racing, which is not as common in NASCAR. In addition to Elliott, only three drivers in the sport’s history have ever won at three different road courses — Geoff Bodine, Rusty Wallace and Ricky Rudd.

“I’ve just had really good cars I think more than anything,” Elliott said.

There has to be more to it.

“I mean, he’s just a very talented driver,” said Alan Gustafson, Elliott’s crew chief. “With any good driver, they have the ability to slow things down, and when you’re running a new track or running at the speeds they run, they can slow it down to where they can make the right decisions and adjustments, and he does a fabulous job of that. Really from the first time I worked with him at a road course, I knew he was really good and just needed some experience and needed to understand the cars.”

Elliott earned his second 2020 victory in Sunday’s race at the Daytona International Speedway Road Course with absolutely no previous exposure beyond simulator time. The Go Bowling 235 was the NASCAR Cup Series’ debut on the famed road course. The 14-turn layout spans 3.61 miles and includes a portion of the high-banked oval as well as a tight infield section.

Throughout the 65-lap event, Elliott led three times for a race-high 34 laps, including the final 13 circuits. He did have to hold off his competition — mainly runner-up Denny Hamlin — on a late-race restart with three laps to go, too.

Elliott beat Hamlin to the finish line by .202 seconds.

“I think he takes a little bit untraditional lines,” Hamlin said. “I think he does a great job of staying out of the rubber. I think his car really does a lot of good things that you would like for your car to do. Their car doesn’t move around a whole lot, with roll and pitch and whatnot. So I think they’ve really got a great road-course setup, and he executes it, and that’s going to equal a lot of success.”

RELATED: NASCAR’s all-time winners on road courses

The only road course on the Cup Series schedule Elliott has yet to win on is the 12-turn, 2.52-mile Sonoma Raceway. Because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the California track was scratched from the 2020 schedule. As was Watkins Glen International in New York, where Elliott won his first-ever Cup race in 2018. He has two victories — the other in 2019 — on that 2.45-mile, seven-turn course. The Daytona Road Course actually replaced Watkins Glen on this year’s schedule.

Elliott’s other win was on the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval (2019), which, like the Daytona Road Course, incorporates part of the oval into its layout. The Charlotte Roval debuted its 2.32 miles over 17 turns in 2018, too, so it’s still new.

And Elliott still conquered it in a timely fashion.

“I think he’s a world-class race car driver,” Gustafson said. “Certainly a world-class road racer.”