“At the top of the board”: When Chase Elliott candidly revealed his admiration for Matt Kenseth

Chase Elliott, the Hendrick Motorsports driver, in a segment of “12 Questions” with Jeff Gluck from 2021, envied the pit stops that Matt Kenseth used to pull off during races that season. He reminisced about his pit crew, the "Killer Bees", and the work they put in over the years.

Chase Elliott won the 2020 NASCAR Cup Series championship, becoming the third-youngest champion in series history. As of mid-2025, he has 19 career Cup Series wins (7 on road courses, commanding him to have the reputation as a road-course "specialist". Throughout his career in Cup racing, Elliott has accumulated stats including over 100 top-fives, more than 170 top-10 finishes, and 21 career poles. Elliott was the 2014 NASCAR Xfinity Series champion and won three races in that series in his championship season.

Chase Elliott, in the 2021 edition of the popular segment for The Athletic, opened up about his admiration for Kenseth.

"Man, that is tough. I'm trying to think of someone who has been kind of an outlier in a certain area. One that I always admired was Matt Kenseth. I don't feel like he ever got enough credit for getting on and off pit road. For years, they used to call his pit crew the Killer Bees. And they just killed it on pit road. But Matt had a lot to do with that. As time went on and we started getting these timesheets (that broke down pit road entry/exit and pit stop times), Matt was at the top of the board."

"I really think at the time he was maximizing things on pit road that other guys weren't doing... So that's been an area I feel like I need to do a better job. And it's a tough thing to maximize, because you miss pit road and you've really hurt yourself bad", he added.

Chase Elliott entered 2021 as the NASCAR Cup Series champion while driving the No. 9 Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports. He had two victories, both at new road-course venues: Circuit of The Americas and Road America. He made his Road America victory especially memorable, starting from 34th place, showing off his amazing talent and status as the defending champion. At the end of the season, he had achieved 15 top-five finishes, 21 top-10s, and had led 952 laps and achieved his best average finish (11.4) to date.

The Hendrick Motorsports star made it to the Championship round for the second straight year. He was hoping to become the first two-time back-to-back champion since Jimmie Johnson. He entered the championship round at Phoenix first among the four title contenders, but after leading 94 laps finished fifth in the race and fourth in the final standings. All three of his rivals finished ahead of him, which eliminated his chance to repeat.

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Chase Elliott on whether he would want to attempt the "Double"

Chase Elliott expressed little interest in attempting the historic "Double" — racing both the Indianapolis 500 and the Coca-Cola 600 on the same day — following news of his Hendrick Motorsports teammate Kyle Larson’s crash during Indy 500 practice. Elliott admitted he doesn’t fully understand how IndyCars work and prefers to support Larson from afar rather than risk undertaking the grueling challenge himself.

"A little, but not much. You know, as they said earlier, they unfortunately had another crash today, which, you know, sucks, and I hope they can fix it. I don't really know how those cars work...So looking forward to keeping up with it hopefully next week. In between, yeah, running around on race day morning, but yeah, wish them the best and looking forward to keeping up," Elliott said (via AYTL Media)

He acknowledged the difficulty and risks involved, emphasizing that he is focused on his NASCAR Cup Series campaign instead.