NASCAR insiders, Todd Gilliland weigh in whether Alan Gustafson, Chase Elliott call was luck or strategy

Todd Gilliland and two NASCAR insiders shared their thoughts on Chase Elliott and his crew chief, Alan Gustafson, being lucky at Martinsville. On the Door Bumper Clear podcast, Gilliland spoke with Tommy Baldwin and Freddie Kraft about whether Elliott’s late pit stop was luck or strategy.

“There’s definitely strategy,” Todd Gilliland said after mentioning it was luck. “I think you see that a lot of races now. In that last stage, there’s guys banking on a caution in that last 20, 30 laps. Here, obviously, it was much earlier, and it was very lucky. But I’m also sure that was part of their strategy, was banking on a caution there.”

Kraft explained that Elliott short-pitted the green flag, cycled through the lead, and put on four new tires. He said it was a risk because Elliott was putting himself nearly two laps down at the time. But the good thing for Elliott was that a caution came out when NASCAR was “looking for debris.”

Kraft later said that the call made by Gustafson was not luck. “I think it was a great call by Alan, and he took the risk, and it paid off,” he said.

Alan Gustafson explains the strategy that helped Chase Elliott win at Martinsville

Baldwin added, “There always is a caution there, so obviously, they game planned it, took a shot, and got the track position in the jump.” He also said that it’s “very ridiculous” that fans of Chase Elliott want Gustafson fired.

Alan Gustafson has been Elliott’s crew chief since 2016, and the duo have seen a lot of success together. In Elliott’s career, he has won 22 races, claimed the NASCAR Cup Series Regular Season championship in 2022, and won the Cup Series title in 2020.

After Elliott won the Martinsville race on Sunday, Gustafson spoke to reporters about the short pit and whether the decision was more data-driven or a gut feeling. “If it’s a clear mathematical advantage, it’s what everybody’s really going to do,” he said. “I think in this case, in our world it’s hard to quantify what we would call passing friction, what it would take to get — if you’re out there running by yourself, it’s easy to model. Where you come out on track, that gets a little bit difficult.”