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NASCAR analyst Alexis Erickson believes Chase Elliott's victory at Texas will be a massive confidence booster for the rest of the season. With his win, he broke his 42-race winless streak.
Before this, Elliott won the Talladega race in 2022 and has not won a race since despite multiple top 5 finishes until his victory at Texas. He started the race in 24th position but gradually kept gaining places through multiple cautions and restarts. On his final restart after Denny Hamlin's crash, he was in a battle with Ross Chastain but took the lead and the latter crashed under the white flag.
Chase Elliott's first win in such a long time not only helped him climb further in the championship but also helped boost his confidence, according to analyst Alexis Erickson. She stated that Elliott had been looking under-confident for a long time, but this win helped him recover from that.
Erickson said on Fast Talk:
“He has had a ton of self-doubt. That seems to me like pretty much all we see from him from time to time when he gets out of the car; ‘oh I should’ve done better, should’ve been me, I didn’t do great, I’m not a great race car driver,’ all these things. And I think, you know, yesterday did so much to boost his confidence because he knew he could do it, his team knew he could do it. That’s why they have stuck with him all this time.”
Chase Elliott "proud" of his winless journey to Texas
Despite coming close to winning on several occasions in 2022 and 2023, the #9 Chevy driver couldn't finish on the podium. However, he wasn't too disappointed with the phase he went through with Hendrick Motorsports.
Talking after his win, Chase Elliott expressed that he was glad for his team to stick around with him through the tough period. He said as quoted by Motorsport:
“I’ve just been really proud of our group for sticking together because I’m sure a lot of you guys have been around the sport long enough to understand and know that when you have a couple bad years, a period of time that things aren’t going well, it is so easy to jump ship and to start bailing out on one another.”
Elliott further revealed that he was "most proud" of the journey he set throughout the winless years.
"I think that the win’s great, all that stuff is fantastic, but I’m truthfully most proud of the journey and the group of people that we have climbed back up together with. We’ve made each other better."
Chase Elliott jumped two places in the championship and now sits in fourth place with 303 (50 stage) points.
