CONCORD, N.C. -- This weekend, Chase Elliott will continue his Chase campaign at Kansas Speedway, where he claimed a top-10 finish in his first NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race there this year in May.
"I definitely don’t look at Kansas as a stellar race track for me," Elliott said. "I think I still have a lot to figure out at Kansas. I’m happy we got to run a Cup race this year. I learned a few things, I thought, through that and hopefully that will help going back.”
Luckily, Elliott has a few teammates to lean on when it comes to figuring out racetracks.
“I lean on my teammates a lot really for any of the races in general," Elliott said, "but looking to Kansas, which is a place I haven’t run at a lot, we try to get in conversations just about anything."
The rookie said that although he never raced at the 1.5-mile track before it was repaved, the oval offers movement that a lot of other repaves don't right away.
"As that place ages and wears I’ve seen that the top line has become more and more of a factor," Elliott said. "The racetrack is still fairly new, so a lot of times we don’t see a freshly-paved racetrack have the groove widen out that fast."
However, the 20-year-old said he is excited to see how the conditions of the track progress.
"Kansas has done a good job and I don’t know if it’s just the way the shape of the race track or what it is that allows us to move around, but I think that is kind of cool," he said. "I hope that continues as we move forward and race more at Kansas."