CONCORD, N.C. - Three points-paying races, three incidents out of their control - it would be enough to bury some teams.
But a quick glance at the NASCAR Cup Series points standings and one would never know that the above narrative has been the story of Chase Elliott and the No. 9 NAPA Auto Parts Chevy squad thus far in 2025. After all, Elliott is in a share of fourth place alongside Christopher Bell, a two-time winner this season.
Elliott too has a win this year, claiming the Clash, a preseason exhibition race. But since, it's been anything but smooth sailing. And yet the 9 team has done anything but fold. It's thrived.
"It says a lot about the resolve of this team to get whatever we can get and if you'd told me the circumstances, not the finishes, of the first three races I'd have been like, 'Yeah, we'd be 35th,'" said crew chief Alan Gustafson. "And we easily could be. One, I'm happy with the team and the focus on just the continuous improvement and doing what we can do and focusing on what we can control."
The first two races of the year at Daytona International Speedway and Atlanta Motor Speedway, respectively, both came at drafting tracks where chaos is expected. In both races, Elliott was in the mix until taking damage outside of his control. He led two laps and finished third in stage two at Daytona but was collected a crash in stage three. At Atlanta, he was fifth in stage one and hovered near the front until being squeezed into the wall in stage two.
Both times the 9 team was able to rally. But on Sunday at Circuit of The Americas, the team was tested even further after Elliott was contacted and spun around in the very first corner of the race, resulting in a damaged toe link and necessitating a race's worth of repairs and altered strategy.
And after three straight events of fast race cars being hampered by circumstances out of their control, Sunday's incident brought with it plenty of frustration.
"My expectations are that everyone is going to be mad and frustrated because if you're passionate about what you do, you feel like you were done wrong," Gustafson explained. "You need to have that reaction. But I think my focus from there is to take that energy and use it to help our situation. There's the initial blow up and past that, we just focus on what we can do to improve our position and improve the car. We knew we had a good car and we knew the damage shouldn't be so bad we couldn't over come it, so it was pretty easy to get on that pretty quickly."
And luckily, in addition to presenting turns of both the left-hand and right-hand variety, road courses offer options. And more time for repairs.
So, under Gustafson's command, the 9 team went to work, first repairing the toe link and then chipping away at the damage to try to bring the race car back as close to where it started as possible.
"I would say it was 80% of what it was by the end," Gustafson handicapped. "I'm very confident that after (qualifying on) Saturday, our car was a car that could win the race. We needed some good circumstances after the damage to get back to where we were, but we got them."
A few timely cautions helped. Already at the back of the pack anyway, Gustafson also took advantage of other teams short pitting, staying out to collect six key points by finishing fifth in stage one.
By the time stage three came around, the No. 9 car was competitive again and Elliott started a slow, methodical march forward. However, with the laps winding down and having to come from the back yet again due to staying out in stage two, Elliott's progress was sure to be limited.
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Then a final caution flag flew with 18 to go. Gustafson decided to play offense, bringing Elliott in and positioning the No. 9 as one of the first cars in line with fresh rubber once the race went green again. From there until the checkered flag, Elliott, one of the best road racers in the game, picked his way back to the front, moving into fourth on the last lap to secure an unlikely top five. Along with the stage points he scored 39 markers and anyone looking back at the scoresheet years from now would never know any different.
Elliott and Gustafson, now the most tenured driver/crew chief pairing in all of the Cup Series, have won a championship before, claiming the 2020 title. Sunday's was far from their first taste of adversity. But championships aren't necessarily won with wins and smooth days, they're won with maximizing, recovering and seizing opportunities when they're presented, turning near-catastrophe into solid finishes along the way.
And if this is what the 9 team is capable of through calamity, Gustafson is looking forward to what a clean, noneventful race day might hold.
"Perspective is worth a lot and we're really going to appreciate a straight-forward race," he grinned. "That could go a long way in itself."