Chase Elliott Wary of Hiccups at Darlington and Gateway in Tricky First Round

Chase Elliott may have been one of the most consistent drivers in the field this regular season. But he will need to be a lot more to live through the upcoming challenges of the playoffs.

The Hendrick Motorsports driver expressed strong awareness of this during this week’s playoff media day. In particular, he put a special emphasis on the first round that begins at Darlington.

“I think you have to respect each round,” Elliott said. “This is going to be a tough round. You know, Darlington’s been a tough track for me. We’ve had some good runs here and there, but certainly not very consistent.

“And you look at Gateway, I think, as a company, we’ve been kind of off there. Bristol’s been a good track for us, but, you know, that’s only a third of it, right?”

The No. 9 Chevy driver wants to give the first round the respect that it deserves and get to Sunday fully prepared. Elliott has never reached Victory Lane at Darlington. In the Next Gen era, he has two top-fives and four top-10s.

He has fared similarly, if not worse, in the World Wide Technology Raceway as well. He missed a race at the track in 2023, but finished 21st and 13th in 2022 and 2024, respectively.

The 29-year-old currently sits seven points ahead of the elimination line. His average finish rate of 11.96 tops the Cup Series field. Even then, he acknowledged that one of his biggest weaknesses has been not qualifying well on Saturdays and stressed that he needs to set himself up for better success on race days.

Echoing his own assessment rather underwhelmingly, the Dawsonville, Georgia native will start Sunday’s Southern 500 from 21st place on the grid.

Will experience help Elliott going forward?

Elliott’s only Cup Series title so far came in 2020, when the Gen 6 car was still in use. Since then, the changes to the cars, tracks, and rules have been significant. So, how much will experience matter in him becoming champion again?

He said that any experience, regardless of what the result was, would be a big aid. In his words, “Just having the experience in general, regardless of what the result was in the year before, I think the experience, both good and bad, can be helpful. So that is a great thing for our team. We have a lot of that.”

Elliott is one of the four champions in the playoffs going for a repeat. The others are Kyle Larson, Ryan Blaney, and Joey Logano.