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With the recent announcement of the 2023 NASCAR season calendar, Hendrick Motorsports driver Chase Elliott is the latest person to address the sport's decision-making. It is well known at this point that NASCAR and stock car racing as a whole have been declining in viewership over the last few years, with NASCAR hitting an all-time low in 2018.
Like several other drivers who have been critical of the governing body, including Kevin Harvick, Denny Hamlin, and Kyle Busch, Elliott made his feelings clear about next year's schedule on Twitter with a rather simple and short message, writing:
“Less = More. I like night races too.”
See the tweet below:
Chase Elliott's critical views on the future season schedule are due to NASCAR going up against the National Football League (NFL) for the final two months of the 2023 season. Motorsports as a whole is somewhat of a niche product that is enjoyed by a select group of people, let alone stock car racing. The NFL is one of the most popular leagues in the world of sports with a combined viewership of 121 million across all networks in the first week of 2022.
NASCAR, on the other hand, managed to have average TV viewership numbers throughout 2022 at 3.7 million. Chase Elliot spoke to the media before last weekend's Bass Pro Shops Night Race in Bristol about the same and said:
“I don’t see any reason in competing against NFL football when that starts. In my opinion, that’s not a battle we’re ever going to win. I think we should be smart about that.”
Chase Elliott believes he was "lucky" to finish P2 at NASCAR 2022 Bass Pro Shops Night Race
2020 NASCAR Cup Series champion Chase Elliott finally started gaining traction in his 2022 playoffs campaign after not having the best results in the opening two races. Bristol Motor Speedway saw the Hendricks Motorsports driver finish in P2 while Chris Buescher managed to visit Victory Lane for Roush Fenway Keselowski racing.
Elliott claimed to be lucky in the race and doesn't want to leave his results to luck next time around as he spoke to the media post-race, saying:
“Proud of the effort. Feel like we had a shot, I feel like we had our balance really close and overcame a really bad qualifying effort again yesterday so we wanna try to get that improved because we got really lucky on pit road. We’re very lucky, that’s not a situation you wanna put yourself in.”
Watch the complete interview below:
Watch Chase Elliott try and extend his championship hopes next weekend at Texas Motor Speedway.
