ARLINGTON, Texas – Chase Elliott spent his Thursday at the General Motors Arlington Assembly Plant, meeting and chatting with employees before taking a tour of the facility.
“It’s been great,” the driver said of visiting the plant, which has been building vehicles since 1954. “I met a lady a bit ago that’s been working here for 40 years. Just amazing the time and effort they put in here to produce as many cars as they do every day. I think she said like 1,300 cars a day or something like that. Just crazy just to think about how much production goes in to this factory.”
After the tour, talk turned to Elliott’s path to making the Championship 4.
As the driver of the No. 9 Kelley Blue Book Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 sees it, simply gathering points is not his primary concern. He’s focused on finding Victory Lane.
“Honestly, winning and getting those points and the things that come with it, getting a ticket to Miami basically now is the most important thing,” Elliott said. “We’re however many points out, so I’m sure we need to have some really good runs and try to get a win these next two weeks.”
Last week, Elliott took home a seventh-place finish at Martinsville Speedway, but he still finds himself sixth in the playoff standings, 31 points behind the fourth-place competitor.
With that in mind, in order to guarantee his spot in the final race with a shot at a title at Homestead-Miami Speedway, he views the next two weeks as must-win scenarios.
“I like how simple it makes it,” he said. “I do enjoy it and I think you have to enjoy it, because you almost need to treat every week like that. I think you need to create a culture within your team that embraces that and enjoys it because if you ever were to make it to Homestead, that’s what it’s going to be there down there anyways.”
While his goal is clear, regardless of what happens in the final three races of the 2018 season, he’s proud of what the No. 9 team and the entire Hendrick Motorsports organization has been able to accomplish after a tough start to the campaign.
“To be able to turn things around like we have, to actually be competitive as we’ve been the past month or two, I think, is a testament to the hard work at Hendrick Motorsports,” the driver said. “It’s been a lot of people putting in a lot of time and a lot of over hours to get to where we’re at. I think that’s something to be proud of.”
This weekend’s race at Texas Motor Speedway is scheduled for 3 p.m. ET on NBCSN, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.