Chase Elliott might be below the cutline for the final race of the season, but he expects to join his teammate for the race.
The defending champion had to deal with tire issues that prevented him from running at his best at Texas Motor Speedway. Furthermore, he had to drop to the rear before the race after failing pre-race inspection multiple times.
Nonetheless, he managed to get a seventh-place finish despite all the troubles he had to face in the race.
“I appreciate everybody continuing to fight through that and get our car a lot better. I thought by the end, we were decent. Just by that point, obviously, it was too late,” Elliott said.
“I had another (tire) vibrate again after that, so I’m not really sure what we had going on there.
“There’s nothing really glaring as to what would cause that. So, I’m really confused. We’ll talk about it and maybe we’ll get to the bottom of why that happened. But regardless, just proud of the fight.
“Obviously, it could have been a lot worse.”
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However, the finish was not good enough to propel to the four places for the Championship 4 race. He currently sits eight points behind the fourth-placed Kyle Busch. As for his teammate Larson, he qualified for the Championship 4 race after his Texas win.
“Hopefully, we can join (Larson) in Phoenix and I’m looking forward to these next two weeks. I think we can run good at the next couple and I feel like we’re all super close in points,” Elliott said.
“I feel like if we just go do our job these next two weeks and control what’s in our hands, we’ll be alright.”
Elliott had a spectacular playoff last season en route to his first championship. While this year has been less spectacular for him, he still has two more races to make it to the final race of the season.
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