CONCORD, N.C. – In June, Chase Elliott secured his career-best finish in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, finding the finish line second at Michigan International Speedway.
Sunday at Michigan, he matched that result, finishing as the runner-up once again.
The rookie led more than 30 laps in both of the trips to the two-mile track, and on Sunday he said he was disappointed that he didn’t take the checkered flag en route to Victory Lane.
“I'd be lying if I said I wasn't,” he said. “If I wasn't, that would mean I didn't care.”
But he noted that he will use the race as another learning experience.
Entering the final restart of the race as the leader with nine laps remaining, Elliott lost the lead before recovering to finish second.
So his restarts will be a focal point.
“I need to do my restarts a little better. That's obviously not a strong point, at least here at Michigan,” he said. “Think about that some and I guess take the positives. We were strong I felt like as a company (Sunday), which was encouraging. Look at that, try to get to Darlington.”
The key moving forward, he noted, will be to race his way in to those late-race environments again and again.
“You do have to put yourself in those situations more often to see how you're going to handle them and how you can fix them moving forward,” he said. “For me, just have to try to take the positives out of it, recognize an issue when you see one. There's only one way to fix it, and that's to hit it head on. No need of hiding from it. Just try to fix it. Hope you have more opportunities to improve and to show that you can do it down the road.”