CONCORD, N.C. – There’s just something special about a good homecoming story.
And that’s exactly what Chase Elliott will have this weekend as he returns home to Georgia for Sunday’s race at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
The Dawsonville, Georgia, native will race at the 1.54-mile track for the first time in his NASCAR Sprint Cup Series career and he’s looking forward to it.
“It’s definitely special to me,” the rookie said. “Atlanta is 100 percent my home track, so I’m excited to get back there and experience that.”
Elliott will pilot the No. 24 NAPA AUTO PARTS Chevrolet SS in Atlanta, the city that is also home to the auto parts company’s headquarters. Elliott has competed at the track in the NASCAR XFINITY Series, earning the pole position in August 2014 and taking home a fifth-place finish. In the 2015 NXS event, Elliott once again drove into the top five to finish fifth.
Although he has experience at the track, Elliott said there are still certain aspects he can improve upon during this next visit.
“I feel like I have my struggles there for sure,” Elliott said. “I want to try to get back and get a little better and look at what we did in the past couple of years and look where I struggled and try to correct that and try to be the best I can. That’s all you can do going into a place for the first time in a new car.”
As he returns home, Elliott is coming off of Daytona Speedweeks, where he won the pole for the Daytona 500, finished sixth in his Duel and ultimately brought home a 37th-place finish in the Great American Race. The rookie, however, is just taking things one week at a time.
“From where we start, whether it’s good, back, ugly, fantastic or just terrible, we want to try to improve from there,” the 20-year-old said. “We just try to focus on our own race team and amongst the three other guys at Hendrick Motorsports, I think that will be the best way for us to try to move forward.”