Chase Elliott hopes to have 'enough pace to fight for the win' at NASCAR Charlotte Roval this weekend

2022 NASCAR Cup Series championship front-runner Chase Elliott has seen his fortunes in the current playoffs change over a matter of seven days. After retiring from the first Round of 12 race at Texas Motor Speedway, which left the Dawsonville, Georgia native at the bottom of the playoff standings, a victory at Talladega Superspeedway last weekend has secured Elliott's spot in the upcoming Round of 8 with one race yet to go.

This is Chase Elliott's sixth consecutive playoff appearance since his debut in the sport, with the previous two years seeing him advance further into the Championship 4. As the drivers and teams prepare to go racing at Charlotte Roval, Elliott must feel right at home as he has no pressure going into an environment where he usually excels. The 26-year-old driver elaborated on what the trip to Victory Lane last weekend meant for his title bid and said:

“At Talladega (Superspeedway), we really just wanted to have a solid day and try to get as many points as we could. Honestly after that second stage, I was super happy with our day. I thought we had done a really good job. We had gained some good stage points and that was going to keep us in a position, we had hedged our bet to have a pretty solid points day regardless of how the finish ended up. To have the win on top of that was just icing on the cake.”

Looking forward to the Bank of America Roval 400, Elliott hoped to have another win under his belt and said:

“Now we can try to have a good weekend here at the (Charlotte) ROVAL. Gives us an opportunity to short those stages and not have to go for stage points and hopefully we have enough pace to fight for the win.”

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Chase Elliott's crew chief on how a win last weekend affects the #9 team's outlook this Sunday

Alan Gustafson, Chase Elliott's crew chief, touched upon how a win can change the team's outlook on how to approach a race weekend. He said:

“We always try to win. For us, it’s just about bonus points. It’s the biggest thing that we can do to put ourselves in a better position going into the next round. Our road course program has not been exactly where we’ve wanted it to be. We’ve been good, we’ve had shots to win and we haven’t been able to win. So focusing on trying to improve that.”

Watch Chase Elliott race next Sunday as the Bank of America Roval 400 goes live from Charlotte Roval at 2:00 pm ET on Sunday.