“Had to execute regardless,” Chase Elliott’s crew chief revealed why they chose to stay out of the pit at Nashville
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Chase Elliott and crew chief Alan Gustafson
Chase Elliott who drives the No.9 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 for Hendrick Motorsports as a full-time NASCAR Cup Series driver is having one of the best seasons so far by leading the points table for most of the 2022 season even without having a win until he acquired his first one after 10 regular-season races in the DuraMAX Drydene 400 at the Dover International Speedway followed by his second one coming from the Nashville Superspeedway after the off-weekend.
Chase Elliott was crowned as the 2020 NASCAR Cup Series Championship winner and he also took home the prize money after winning the NASCAR All-Star Race in the same year he also won the 2014 NASCAR Nationwide Series which is now the NASCAR Xfinity Series and he is currently in a position where he can likely acquire his second championship but only time will tell and also his Ally 400 ending grabbed attention after the caution not coming out after Brad Keselowski and Cole Custer made contact on the outside wall and he also chose to stay out of the pits in the final laps of the race.
“Absolutely, yeah, that was the difference,” says Chase Elliott’s crew chief Alan Gustafson explaining why they succeeded in staying out of the pits
Chase Elliott and the team decided to stay out of the pits and carry on during the final and the most crucial moments of the race and when Alan Gustafson was asked about it, he responded that his staying out made the difference and with the No.19 of Martin Truex Jr. and No.18 of Kyle Busch catching up to them on fresh tires would be problematic but he was sure that it wouldn’t happen as he had a pretty good lead and it was a pretty intense race.
“Absolutely, yeah, that was the difference. I think the 18 for sure — the 19 was really good. The 18 was really good. The 18 was really fast on the short runs, so if he lines up anywhere near us on new tires it’s game over. Yeah, he just — my expectation was he wasn’t going to get that close and I felt like there was going to be tough — there typically is, there’s enough chaos in front of you that you just can’t go anyway,” said Chase Elliott’s crew chief Alan Gustafson.
He further added by talking about the other drivers who came in pretty handy to Elliott who would make it difficult for the guys with new tires to overtake and come compete for the win and when he noticed that Kyle Larson, Kurt Busch who recently won at Kansas Speedway and Ryan Blaney, the drivers who all ran pretty well so far, he felt confident that staying out was the better thing to do and they had to stick with it and they did.
“When I saw, there was four or five legit good cars, guys that weren’t going to be easy to pass. When I saw that, I felt better. You never know. But then you can’t just say, oh, Kyle. You’ve got to switch your focus to Kurt. He’s no slouch; the guy is a great race car driver. He just won at Kansas, and that team has been doing really well. So, you’ve got Kurt and you’ve got Kyle Larson and Ryan, all those guys super good drivers and good teams. Had to execute regardless,” concluded Chase Elliott’s crew chief Alan Gustafson.
With Chase Elliott now holding a strong lead ahead of everyone for a while standing 1st in the points table, it wouldn’t be surprising if he ends up winning the 2022 Cup Series Championship.
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